Autogrill Group renews its Italian network offering with new sandwiches and “Super Life” salads

Autogrill’s global dimension experience – nearly a billion customers served in 2017 in over 4,000 points of sale run by the Group in four continents – gives it unique vision of food trends as they emerge. Such trends are constantly analyzed by the Group’s Product Innovation & Development team, who work in the Spazio Fucina, the gastronomic research and experimentation laboratory in Autogrill’s Dubai headquarters.

Autogrill Group’s new products for Italy are designed to offer consumers meals that strike a good balance between “healthy” and “fast”. The defining features of the new offering are:

even higher quality ingredients, rich in nutrients and beneficial substances;
promotion of quality local food through selection of PDO and PGI products;
choice of premium foods in all food categories.

In 2018 Autogrill decided to renew its food offering in Italy to anticipate and interpret the gastronomic and social tendencies of consumers who are adopting an increasingly informed, careful and sustainable approach to food. When customers travel they now make healthier choices, they’re careful not only about the flavour of food but also products’ origins and short supply chains.

Silvano Delnegro, CEO Autogrill Europe

The renewal of the offering involves all products. The Group is presenting its new sandwiches in three families: the “Grandi Classici”, which will continue to feature in the offering as they are Autogrill’s icon sandwiches (from the Rustichella to the Camogli, from the Bufalino to the Apollo), the “Benvenuti a…”, which focus on top quality local and regional gastronomic products, such as the Benvenuti a…Dubai with typical Dubai salami, the Benvenuti a…Norcia, a ciabattina roll filled with roast pork (a culinary excellence from central Italy) and lastly “Dalla Cucina” sandwiches, with special ingredients and new combinations, such as the first vegan-certified Club Sandwich Mediterraneo or the Norvegese, combining salmon and avocado.

Forming a integral part of the new offering are the “super foods”, the ingredients in the new Super Life line of salads. These “super foods” have nutrient properties beneficial to the organism and nutrient content above the average of common food. They’re rich in vitamins, fibres, enzymes, minerals, antioxidants or phytonutrients that provide energy and help keep in form. These new salads target the needs of consumers who are also careful about lightness and wellbeing when they travel.

Spazio Fucina is a research laboratory where the chefs and food experts in the Product Innovation & Development team (set up in 2011) develop ideas, recipes and gastronomic concepts to translate input from emerging food trends and new nutritional standards and food technologies into products that enrich the food offering in the Group’s points of sale all over the world.