An interview with Mattia Pedon/
Why Italy’s pulses market is not as small as it seems

A family business now run by the second generation, Pedon Group is one of Italy’s leading suppliers of pulses, cereals, oilseeds, and superfoods. Active both domestically and globally, Pedon has an annual turnover of around 100-million euros. With 65% of their business in the Italian market, and a 70:30 split between private labels and own-brand products at home and abroad, the Pedon Group is a significant market force in Europe, the US, and beyond. 

Can you give me a brief overview of your product ranges?

We have dry pulses, pasta made from pulse flour; we have pre-cooked pulses and cereals. We have what we call our 10-minute range, our 5-minute range, our 90-second range, and we’ve recently launched a line of exciting snacks. These are made from roasted pulses with a variety of spices, dried fruit, etc. We also have a unit that deals specifically with gluten-free flours. In fact, our gluten-free product line has been around since before most people knew what gluten-free meant; our first customer was a pharmacy.

What are the origins of the pulses with which you’re working? Do you have an Italian or a European focus for your raw materials?

The issue of regionality has become more significant over the past few years. We follow what the customer wants and, recently, the customer has been wanting more Italian- or European-origin products, especially for organics. But it’s not always possible. For lentils, we source mainly from Canada or North America. For chickpeas though, we’re currently using around 95% Italian chickpeas. It comes down to a question of quality, price, and whether we’re able to source the goods in time. If the price is the same for Italian chickpeas and Turkish chickpeas, we’ll buy Italian. 

Italian agriculture is very fragmented in terms of pulses. We’re not farmers, we’re producers, but we like to be able to help our farmers and sometimes that means we will buy product that we don’t usually need to buy from Italy. So, for example, if a supermarket chain asks us to supply organic lentils from Italy, we will ask our farmers to grow them but those farmers can also ask us to help them sell another product, e.g., chickpeas, in return. So factors like these have been very influential in determining origins over the past five years or so.

There’s also the issue that China is disappearing as a supplier in the European market; I think that’s a shame. There are various reasons for this. European consumers have the idea that there are food-safety concerns with Chinese pulses but this is entirely untrue. The domestic demand for pulses in China has increased and so Chinese crops are now being consumed more within China rather than exported; that is combined with the fact that more competitive crops — corn, soy, potato — receive a government bonus. Then of course, the shipping crisis has made the cost of exporting untenable for most businesses and consumers and that’s added to a canceled tax refund on pulse exports that has also increased the cost for foreign clients. So it’s a combination of factors but the end result is that the Chinese pulse export market in Europe has gone from 1 million metric tons per year to around 100,000 metric tons per year.

In terms of general origins, there are some standard sources such as North and South America, Africa, and Asia. With lentils, for example, the quantity is generally too large for us to source from anywhere other than Canada and the US. We also have a partnership with a big farmer in Kazakhstan to grow organic lentils there. We buy a lot of navy beans; they come from Ethiopia and we have our own company there. For borlotti beans, it’s a mix between Argentinian and Italian. White beans are mainly Argentinian but, if there’s a problem there, we will source from Egypt.

It has been said that the Italian domestic pulses market is small compared to many others; would you agree with that?

It depends on to where you’re comparing it. To the world, yes it’s small. In relation to India, Brazil, South Africa, of course, our market is small. Pedon Group really has only two competitors in Italy. But, with that said, I don’t agree that it’s a small market for pulses. In fact, I’m seeing the market grow very quickly, particularly in terms of pulses being used as ingredients. We’re seeing the milling facilities that give us pulse flour to make pasta dramatically increase their output and most of that pasta is consumed either in Italy or in Europe. For me, the market is not as big as some, but it is not as small as others.


Has your product range evolved recently to match the growing trend in plant-based foods?

Yes, to a point. The customer is ready to be involved, but we’re seeing that supermarket chains are fighting inflation, and often they’re not willing to put forward some more innovative products and surprise the customer. That is certainly the case here in Italy. Around the world, there are chains who are trying to restart development and make something new but, so far, it hasn’t happened yet here. 

For us, we’re working on developing products that are important for our company. We’re working now on ready meals with vegetables and sauce all included. This is recent for us; up until last year, we weren’t able to have flavor inside our products because we want to remain 100% natural. So now we’re starting with a new product line that mixes rice or quinoa with chickpeas or lentils, lemon, basil, etc. And we’ve already launched our vegetable paella. You can put this in the microwave or even eat it cold if you’re really hungry.

We’re also doing snack mixes, for example one of our latest is roasted pumpkin seeds, roasted chickpeas, and cranberries. The fruit, not cranberry beans!

Ultimately, we know that something is boiling, and that the customer wants something new, but right now the supermarket chains are not quite ready.

Sustainability is very important to Pedon Group; can you tell us about that philosophy?

In the pulses business, you’ve already done 90% of the work in terms of sustainability, because it’s not a business that uses a lot of energy or even a lot of water in the growing process. In our case, we started very early trying to communicate the sustainability of our products, not only in terms of the environment but also for people. We have different projects. For example, we use 100% wind power in our administrative facility, and 95% of our packaging is recycled. We use 30-35% alubia-bean waste and 65-70% recycled paper in our packaging, leaflets, business cards, etc. We do have more waste than that 35% but it’s just not possible to use any more and still make good paper. Maybe someday.

Most of our farmers have a clause in their contract with us regarding what they can and can’t do with the land. We don’t tolerate heavy tilling and we’re looking at including a kind of forestation clause: something like 10% of all square meterage needs to be turned over to forest. We’re involved in Paraguay with chia seeds and there it is law that farmers must have at least 100 meters of forest around their farms. In Italy, 100 meters around each farm would mean no more farmland but we’d like to adapt the idea. 

We also collaborate with a lot of charitable foundations here in Italy, and we donate to Banco Alimentare with one of our products; that’s been happening for over 15 years. We’re also very proud that we have our kindergarten in Ethiopia next to our factory; that hosts 300 children between the ages of three and six. And, of course, we’re working for carbon neutrality.

From your website, your advertising campaigns, and your community work, it seems like you’re really trying to engage with customers and invite them to your products rather than waiting for them to come to you. What prompted that as a strategy?

We don’t follow trends. We’re quite lucky really to choose the trends, or rather to have the trend choose us 38 years ago! Maybe we wouldn’t be here today if we just started selling olive oils or seed oil. But my father, and my grandfather first, started to work with products that were very niche and not widely available in Italy at the time; you could just buy pulses at the market, by the kilo. 

We’ve always tried to put innovation first. We were the first to put barcodes on pulses packaging in Italy; that made a big change for supermarket chains. We try to be one step ahead and to encourage thinking outside the box; this applies to the supermarkets and the customers. We understand that, if someone buys a kilo of lentils or borlotti beans, they might stay in the cupboard for at least a year because people need to plan ahead to eat them. In my opinion, this is no longer acceptable to the younger generation. So we’re working to make these foods easier, quicker, and more convenient. 

Most of the time we’re successful - but not always! We have many products that have been a success but we also have products that haven’t. Sometimes though, we hit a bull’s eye.