If there is one company that has made the ability to combine tradition and innovation its core business, it is undoubtedly Cortilia. Founded in 2011 as a startup under the name ‘Geomercato,’ today Cortilia is a benefit company, i.e., a company that aims – in addition to growing its business – to have a positive impact on society and the community in which it operates.
Cortilia was created by entrepreneurs Marco Porcaro and Antonio Perini to offer high-quality, farm-to-table food by networking with the best breeders, farmers, fishermen, and local producers. The company delivers within 24 hours and allows customers to choose the time slot of the service.
Networking… in the web!
The Cortilia network now includes 4,500 producers and around 400 farmers, and more than 2,500 products can be purchased online. While in the beginning deliveries took place only in Milan, today products are delivered all over Italy. Customers can choose whether to subscribe to the service – selecting product types and receiving them weekly, fortnightly, or monthly – or to buy individual products according to their needs.
In the beginning, Porcaro’s most difficult challenge was to convince producers that they could sell their products online at a time when digitalisation was not as pervasive as it is today.
Of course, things have changed, but the great opportunity of digital transformation is not only to increase sales.
Towards conscious consumption
As Porcaro stated in an interview with StartupItalia, online has the great advantage of “raise awareness of conscious consumption, offering a level of information that an offline purchase does not allow. On the other hand, the level of information you have online, you struggle to obtain in offline purchases. Here, the web becomes an ally in better understanding what we put on the table. In the future, when shopping, people will no longer ask how to make a purchase, but why do they do it. We will increasingly move into choice-related terrain to generate the least possible impact. We want to encourage customers towards not the how but the why”. .
Growing eCommerce
Cortilia’s business grew well during the pandemic when many people were more or less forced to become familiar with eCommerce. Once they realised how well the service worked, they continued to use it. Today, at a time when food-related eCommerce is experiencing stagnation, with a growth rate of 0.5% in 2024, Cortilia is exceeding 8%.
On the company website, there is no shortage of discounts or special offers, but never the below-cost policy of the large-scale retail trade, which strangles many producers. Instead, there is a section named ‘Ugly but Good’, which features products that are aesthetically imperfect and therefore excluded from supermarket counters but are of excellent quality and are offered at a discounted price.
A green headquarters
Today, Cortilia operates in a new green headquarters in Cassina de Pecchi, on the outskirts of Milan, an area of 50,000 square metres in line with the highest environmental sustainability standards that bring together all company functions. The site – powered by 100% renewable energy – has obtained LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, the world’s most widespread award for sustainable building, with a Gold certification level.
Congratulations to those who bring the short supply chain to the tables of Italians!
Learn more about other outstanding companies in Lombardy.