2023 Author: Cody Thornton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 11:20
While gastronomy became fashionable, Oscar Farinetti created Eataly, the non-supermarket of "high food". Then eating well was no longer enough, we started asking ourselves a lot of questions, and then the entrepreneur from Alba opened FICO, the amusement park of the agri-food chain in Bologna. Today the sustainability is the only topic that seems to deserve our attention and Farinetti builds a themed shopping center for us, in that of Turin. Officially "green retail park", Green Pea, inaugurated this morning for the press and available to all from 9 December, is ready to show us once again that the concept matters more than the context.
"A small step for mankind, a big step for sustainability", reads the entrance, and on the other hand we did not expect anything less ambitious, much less modesty from Farinetti. 50 million euros invested, 15,000 square meters and 200 new jobs (in spite of Covid) built next to the Eataly headquarters Ingot, the primeval, in what certainly no longer has the air of a parking lot but of a five-storey shopping center "dedicated to changing the relationship with energy, movement, home, clothing and leisure".
The commercial partners are many, a hundred, and are distributed on the various levels to outline thematic areas (more or less defined, but it doesn't matter):
- Life: proposals of the Main Partners FCA, Iren, Enel X, UniCredit, Mastercard, FPT Industrial, as technological partner, Samsung. And then the Green Pea Discovery Museum, the City of Turin, Smat, Argo and laLavanderia Naturale Iride.
- Home: over 40 Partners including Whirlpool, Valcucine, Roda, Gervasoni, Riva 1920, Pianca, Rubelli, Artemide, Driade and FontanaArte, under the guidance of the Home Brand Director Pierangelo De Poli.
- Fashion: the "best Italian and international sustainable fashion brands" including Borbonese, Timberland, PT Torino, Patagonia, ESEMPLARE, oscalito1936, Drumohr, Giampaolo, Ecoalf, North Sails, Dedicated and Ortigni under the guidance of Fashion Brand Director Roberto Orecchia. And then tailoring of the past and the future, with the avatar factory Igoodi.
- Beauty: "The best Italian clothing brands": Ermenegildo Zegna, Brunello Cucinelli, Herno and SEASE - will offer concept stores dedicated to Green Pea. At the same time, cosmetics, books, culture and food, together.
On the fourth floor, that is, on the roof of the megastructure, the Club dedicated to Creative Leisure with the Alkemy Spa, the Cocktail Bar and "the first infinity pool in Turin overlooking the Alps". Is called Otium Pea Club, edited by To Be srl, and is at first glance the real gem of Green Pea: heated swimming pool and open-air sauna for an annual subscription which, from what I understand, costs less than that of a mediocre gym.
N. B for storytelling enthusiasts: the spa is equipped with automatic story dispensers. Just press a button and Plato tells you his, to relax by becoming a culture.
The "Green Pea" (90% of Eatinvest S.p.a - whose major shareholders are the Farinetti and Nocivelli families - and 10% of the Orecchia family, historical and established fashion entrepreneurs in Turin) will be led by Francesco Farinetti, Oscar's eldest son.
Contrary to what we can expect from the family of Fontanafredda, Eataly and Fico, it will not be particularly focused on food. Indeed, the latter has a marginal role in Farinetti's eco-effort (someone will remember the world before MasterChef: Oscar Farinetti was the man from Unieuro).
The starred restaurant is one of the gastronomic players involved Neighboring House, which moves from Eataly Lingotto to the third floor of Green Pea, e Vergnano coffee, which comes into play with a new pack made of R-PET and the Women in Coffee project (created to support the role of women in coffee plantations, where 70% of the workforce is female).
Then, there is " 100 Wines and Related ", bistro open from breakfast until after dinner that the Turin entrepreneur Davide Pinto, owner of the Affini group (as well as the homonymous cocktail bar in San Salvario) presents as a "laboratory of experimentation", especially on the aforementioned coffee and on the Baladin beer, a historic Italian artisan producer that for the occasion presents its new fully openable, ecological, recyclable and reusable can.
However La Granda, another brand inextricably linked to Eataly, will give the skin of the slaughtered animals to some brands for sale on the second floor.
The impression, on the whole, is of being inside a permanent B2B fair. After all, Green Pea was openly created for buyers as well as for end customers, that is the rest of us who stroll around the new megastructure, either out of curiosity or to buy us a new sustainable kitchen (there are from 3,500 to 30,000 euros, because "sustainability it must be democratic ").
The playful and didactic aspect that characterizes the other gigastores born from Farinetti-thought is not lacking; the ground floor is in many ways a museum to explain to children, obviously together with Iren, how a hydroelectric plant works. And in fact the sponsors in evidence are many: it is a bit like staying in a school designed by Letizia Moratti.
Then there are those elements of a scenic-symbolic nature, such as the floor that produces energy by walking on it and the bicycles to charge the mobile phone, which make us dream so much.
In any case, the first sustainable shopping center was built by Oscar Farinetti and we hope it will go better than - it seems - FICO is doing, because the virtuous Italian companies (medium-large) involved are many and they seem to have given their best. of themselves to show, if nothing else, the sustainable alternative to the reality we live in.