The company now produces one and a half million pallets per year. The employees in the foreground
The history of Barigazzi Fratelli begins in 1962 in a garage in the center of Coenzo. There, the poplar wood was processed. available in abundant quantities in the plains, to obtain fruit crates.
A few years later, local industry began to take off and the Barigazzi focused on the production of pallets, a necessary support for moving goods in every sector. At first glance, if you compare a pallet today with that of the past, it seems that nothing has changed: same shape, same materials. Instead, everything has changed, under the pressure of the market, innovation and sustainability of production. The Barigazzi company has embraced changes, sometimes driven by pioneering spirit, and at other times out of necessity, but without ever moving away from this territory to which it is deeply connected. “In the 1980s, we moved to this location where we had the space to grow,” explains Nadio Barigazzi, representing the second generation of entrepreneurs. Today, the company’s area covers 45,000 square meters and includes a sawmill department and various pallet storage areas, some of which are newly covered and just completed. “The internal sawmill allowed us to overcome the recent timber crisis: Covid and the war in Ukraine caused an unusual demand for raw materials, and there was a shortage of boards for packaging.” “By cutting internally, we were able to continue serving the customers,” adds Nadio’s son, Emanuele, who along with his cousins Paolo and Kevin, represents the third generation in the company. In 2021, by constructing a 1200-square-meter iron shed, we doubled the pallet storage capacity for the food and pharmaceutical sectors, which require dry products and are experiencing growth.
With the aim of expanding its services, in 2022, Barigazzi acquired an additional six thousand square meters of adjacent land to store products. Today, the company produces one and a half million pallets per year, a volume that has grown after the automation of some processes that were particularly labor-intensive for the employees. “We have introduced around ten robots in strategic departments to accelerate production and facilitate some operations that were previously performed manually.” It’s not the only action in support of the thirty people working here: “At the end of 2022, we wanted to send a concrete signal against the rising cost of living by providing them with a €600 utility bill bonus and a €200 fuel bonus.” The company is committed to economic, social, and environmental sustainability, and it is in the environmental aspect that the most significant steps have been taken in terms of processes and organization. “Today, the timber is PEFC certified and sourced from sustainable productions. Furthermore, to aid in the reforestation of the forests in the northeast affected by the Vaia storm, we worked with 100 thousand cubic meters of logs felled during the abnormal weather event. The by-products from the processing (bark, sawdust, and wood chips) are utilized as biomass for energy production and pellets, enabling a complete material recycling. In the next two months, we will invest in a 700 kW photovoltaic cover that will meet half of our energy needs. Lastly, our sustainability practices are under scrutiny by the Sant’Anna Institute in Pisa: we are part of a pilot project to measure the Product Environmental Footprint of our production, and excellent results have emerged.”
