Our History

On 29 June 1971, Orlando Marconi began work on a small six hectare plot of land at San Benedetto del Tronto (Ascoli Piceno), on the border between Marche and Abruzzo, to construct about 40,000 square metres of cold storage. He was a self-made man with the experience of war and poverty behind him, used to turning his hand to a thousand trades, over and above his principle occupation of haulage contractor, and he had sensed the potential the frozen food sector would soon represent in Italy and throughout the world.

THE SURGELA ORDER

Investing all his savings, Orlando Marconi threw himself into the adventure, after receiving the trust and an important order from Surgela, before its acquisition by Nestlé.

Surgela needed an "overspill facility", somewhere to temporarily store stocks of frozen products in excess of its production capacity. This is what Orlando Marconi gave them, just a few hundred metres away. It was filled at once and he immediately went on to construct more cold stores, eventually creating Central Frigor Marconi, later part of Marconi Freddeuropa.

THE GROWTH YEARS: THE AIMA ORDER

In the 1970s, the company continued to expand. From a one-man business, it quickly became an unlimited partnership, then, in 1985, a joint-stock company. It was in those years that the San Benedetto del Tronto facility won an important order from Aima, the agricultural market price control body, becoming the largest beef storage facility in Italy.

DEVELOPMENTS: NEW COMPANIES

The company began diversifying, providing warehouses for not just storing, but also distributing all kinds of frozen products. Over the years, the San Benedetto del Tronto cold stores were joined by other facilities: in 1987 in the industrial area of Ascoli Piceno; in 1991 at Alanno Scalo (Pescara), and finally, in 2005, the cold stores at Fidenza (Parma).

THE FIDENZA HUB AND INTEGRATED COLD CHAIN LOGISTICS

At the beginning of the 2000s, the increase in per capita consumption of frozen foods in central-northern Italy led Orlando Marconi and the Group's administrator Adriano Federici to look for a site for a new logistics hub. As a result, in 2005, a new international hub was born at Fidenza in the province of Parma, in a strategic position just a stone's throw from the motorway. In the heart of Italy's "food valley", this rapidly became an interface between the hubs serving the frozen and fresh products industry and those serving the large-scale retail sector.

The Marconi Group has subsequently decided to go back to its origins and disconnect from facilities in Alanno, Ascoli and Fidenza, focusing on its own territory.