Eataly
A chain of shops and restaurants devoted to quality Italian food, founded by Oscar Farinetti; the first outlet opened at Lingotto in Turin on 27 January 2007.
Eataly is the chain of shops and restaurants devoted to quality Italian food products, founded by the Piedmontese entrepreneur Oscar Farinetti and born in Turin: the first outlet opened on 27 January 2007 at Lingotto.[1] From that first shop, over fifteen years, a network grew to 44 outlets in 15 countries, from the United States to Japan, with revenue of 464 million euros in 2021.[2] Besides its historic home, Turin keeps a second shop in the city centre and, since 2026, an outlet at Caselle airport.
From Unieuro to food
Before food, Farinetti had sold household appliances: between 1978 and 2003 he turned his father's supermarket into Unieuro, which became Italy's leading company in the sector.[1] Having sold that business, he moved into food and wine, founding the company Eataly, of which he became chairman; the Treccani entry places the start of the new venture in 2004, while Il Post dates the company's founding to 2003.[3][2] The declared idea was to showcase the food products of small artisan producers, with an approach close to that of Slow Food.[3]
The tie to the Bra-based movement was personal: Farinetti's move into food and wine was also encouraged by his friendship with Carlo Petrini, whom he described as
«the first to make me understand that food is the only consumer good that we put inside our body rather than outside it, and that it is therefore far more important than all the others»
The quotation appears in the profile Il Post devoted to him in February 2012.[1]
The first shop at Lingotto
The shop opened in January 2007 was presented as the world's first supermarket entirely devoted to quality food: three floors with restaurants, bars, cooking schools, wine cellars and even a museum.[1] The formula mixed three things that until then had stood in different places: the market, where you buy; the table, where you eat what is on sale; and the classroom, where you learn to cook it.
The shop is still at the same address, via Ermanno Fenoglietti 14, in the Lingotto area, served by the Spezia stop of the metro. It opens every day from 8 am to 11 pm and, besides the market and restaurants, hosts wine tastings, cabaret evenings, small concerts and cooking courses.[4] In the city centre Eataly has a second outlet in via Lagrange 3, which takes part, among other things, in the Terra Madre Salone del Gusto programme and offers the «merenda sinoira», the traditional Piedmontese farmhouse afternoon meal.[5]
Expansion across Italy and the world
After Turin came other Italian cities, including Bologna, Genoa, Milan and Rome, and abroad Tokyo and New York.[3] On 21 June 2012 the chain's largest shop opened in Rome, on via Ostiense: 17,000 square metres in the Air Terminal built for the 1990 World Cup, with 500 new hires. The chain then had 19 outlets and revenue close to 300 million euros a year.[6] On 18 March 2014 it was Milan's turn, where Eataly took over the former Teatro Smeraldo in piazza XXV Aprile, closed two years earlier: 5,500 square metres on three floors, about 350 employees, the group's twenty-fifth shop.[7]
Advertising and provocations
Eataly also drew attention for its advertising campaigns. On 30 April 2011 it published an advertisement in La Stampa showing two women holding hands, presented as a family, echoing an Ikea campaign featuring a gay couple that had recently been criticised by a junior minister; the same advertisement noted that the shops would stay open on 1 May.[8] On 27 June 2014, after Luis Suárez bit Juventus defender Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup in Brazil, Eataly published an advertisement in Corriere della Sera poking fun at the episode, starting from a New York Post headline.[9]
FICO, the hardest project
The most ambitious venture tied to the brand was FICO Eataly World (Fabbrica Italiana Contadina), a food-themed park on the outskirts of Bologna: 80,000 square metres with cultivated fields, barns, workshops, about 25 restaurants and a conference centre.[10] Opened in November 2017, it was meant to draw six million visitors and 90 million euros in revenue a year; in 2019 visitors numbered 1.6 million and net losses reached 3.14 million euros.[11] In 2022 admissions were about 400,000, and in 2023 its transformation was announced, from April 2024, into «Grand Tour Italia», devoted to the cuisines of every Italian region.[12] Farinetti admitted as much openly:
«Let's say that among the things that haven't exactly gone well for me, FICO is one of them»
The statement was reported by Il Post in September 2023.[12]
The new ownership and the present
On 21 September 2022 the Investindustrial fund, controlled by Andrea Bonomi, took a 52% stake in Eataly through a 200-million-euro capital increase and the purchase of shares from the historic partners, the Farinetti family's Eatinvest and the Baffigo Miroglio family. The deal was meant to wipe out net financial debt and support the opening of new large shops around the world; Nicola Farinetti, the founder's son and until then chief executive, became chairman.[2]
In Turin the brand has returned to a place of transit: in July 2026, with the new departure lounge at Caselle airport, an Eataly of about 530 square metres opened beyond security, with a market, café, restaurant and 156 seats, built together with the operator Avolta.[13]
Pages linking here
Related articles: Aeroporto di Torino-Caselle, Slow Food