The internationalization of Italian companies in the Food Industry

The food industry represents a fundamental part of the Italian culture and economic system and constitutes an important sector of the Italian manufacturing industry and, as a consequence, there are many Italian companies operating in this sector. First of all, according to the literature, we have defined the industry and we have investigated the main reasons and the different modes, on the basis of which, companies decide to go international. Then, we have selected the most important Italian companies and we have analyzed 118 different cases of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) which were carried in the last thirty years. The aim of this work is to examine the Foreign Direct Investments of the Italian companies operating in the food industry and, thus, to show which were the main countries targeted, in which period of time the most of FDIs was carried, to which NACE classification these companies belong and, most of all, to understand which FDI mode (Greenfield, M&A or Joint Venture) was more successful. In particular, we focused on M&A and Greenfield and we analyzed the main factors and reasons that lead a company to prefer the one or the other. Keywords: Italian Food industry, FDI, Greenfield, M&A, Joint Venture.