The head of the Italian high-end food market and delicatessen Eataly on Thursday announced a partnership to serve motorists, along with his ambitions to cater an airline.
Eataly founder and owner Oscar Farinetti told journalists that an Eataly service area off the motorway at Secchia Ovest, near Modena, will be in place by the end of 2014, thanks to a partnership with restaurant chain Autogrill, whose outlets matched with service stations dot Italy's major freeways. The new locale dubbed 'Eataly for Autogrill' will be a franchise deal and designed to appeal to discerning travellers.
"The investment is entirely theirs," Farinetti explained at a conference in the Foreign Press Club of Milan. "The idea is to create a blank Autogrill where the sandwiches are made on the spot and there will be neither Coca-Cola nor scratch-and-win (lottery tickets), and not even (out of season) oranges in summer," he said. Farinetti added that he would "like it a lot" if he could extend Eataly's reach to Italy's flagship airline Alitalia as well.
"We will try again. We will return to the task," after an earlier proposal failed with a former Alitalia chief executive.
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