The president of the Association of the Food Industry of Castilla y León (Vitartis), Santiago Miguel, today encouraged companies with the lowest dimension to explore the possibility of formalizing alliances and increasing their size, in order to innovate more, improve their competitiveness and expand markets.
Santiago Miguel, who has presided this morning the Vitartis Board of Directors at Fresh Campofrío facilities in Burgos, recalled that promoting the resistance of food industries and their greatest integration into the chain, to overcome challenges that exceed individual capacity, It is the first of the seven axes of the ‘Strategy for the strengthening of the food industry of Castilla y León’, prepared by Vitartis, which has the support of the regional government among other entities and institutions of the community.
“In Castilla y León, only 4.3% of companies have ten employees or more; that is, More than 95% of our productive fabric is made up of companies without employees and micropymes “Said the president of Vitartis. Some percentages, he added, very similar to those of the national average.
In the food industry, however, companies with ten or more employees represent almost 21% of the total sector, more than 15 points above the regional average. “A fact that, in any case, also justifies our insistence on recommending to smaller companies that formalize strategic alliances to better face the challenges of innovation and digitalization, among others, in order that they can compete in new markets,” said Santiago Miguel.
Less companies
According to the latest INE data, the food and beverage industry in Castilla y León has 2,808 companies, 6% less than a decade ago (2015), exercise in which the beginning of the new phase of economic growth was consolidated in Spain, after the great crisis of 2008.
Apart from the impact of the pandemic (2020), which was lower in this sector (-0.5%), the highest reduction in the number of companies occurred in 2023, following the modification of the criteria of ‘active companies’ by the INE (-5.2%).
That said, the most relevant of the evolution of the number of companies in the sector, in the opinion of the president of Vitartis, is that in the last decade only the segment of companies without employees (-32%) has decreasedcompared to the increase in SMEs (10%) and micropymes (2.3%).
Also, among the big companies, in 2024 there is one less than in 2015, probably due to their own decision, as a consequence of the difficulties derived from the legal consideration of ‘great company’ compared to the regulations that affect SMEs.
Regarding the profile of the Vitartis partner food industries, which concentrate more than 30% of the employment of the sector, The vast majority (82%) are companies with templates of more than 50 employees.
More employment
According to Santiago Miguel, if this data joins the evolution of employment in the sector in this same period, “it will be concluded that the food industry of Castilla y León enjoys very good health.” The number of people employed in the sector has increased 40% in ten years: from 35,500 of 2015 to more than 50,000 in 2024.
In this sense, the president of Vitartis assured that the ‘strategy’ prepared by the association “establishes a strengthening roadmap, especially in the medium -sized companies, which we trust that it would allow to generate around 15,000 new jobs up to 2029”.
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