I'm still in Italy, and in the past few days I returned to Torino once again to visit my old co-workers. The first stop I made, however, was to my favorite gelateria (ice cream parlor) GROM. Their flavors are so rich and distinct, I believe, because of the high quality products they use. This time I had their crema di Grom (crema or cream ice cream is essentially custard), ricotta con fichi canditi (ricotta cheese with candied figs), and marron glacé (candied chestnuts). Their flavors vary according to what's seasonal in each month of the year. GROM is definitely a business I'd like to study more in depth. From their website:
"The idea is to apply to the artisanal gelato production, a principle common to all the best restaurants in the world: the purchase of absolute top quality raw materials.
With this purpose in mind, at the end of 2002, Guido Martinetti and Federico Grom set out to search the best that agriculture has to offer, from the Langhe to Sicily and Central America. The standards are strict: only fresh seasonal fruit, coming from the best consortia in Italy and from our farm Mura Mura no colorings or artificial additives, Lurisia mountain water for the sorbets and high-quality whole milk for the creams, organic eggs and a selection of the best cocoas and coffees from central America."
They started in Torino and in the last few years have expanded across Italy, to Paris, and even to New York. While they use biodegradable and environmentally friendly products, my question is, with their geographic expansion, how do they make up for the carbon footprint of transporting all these green products?
This is one example of why I think it would be extremely interesting to study supply chain management if I want to be able to consult on corporate social responsibility initiatives.
What else did I do this weekend? I went to the presentation of a very interesting book called Essere Maschi (To Be Males). The event was part of a series of seminars in a conference put on by the group Maschìle Pluràle, an association of men that now has chapters all over Italy. The group formed partly in response to the feminist movement in Italy in the 1980s to help men "find places and instruments to start a research on their identity, on their relations with women and with other men, on their place in the world, on the perception they have inherited from their bodies, and on their sexuality" (translated from their website). The title of this weekend's conference in Torino was "That dark object desire: the male sexual imagination and the issue of prostitution." My former employer, the Tampep Association, was involved in the events because we help victims of human trafficking forced into the European sex trade. The book Essere Maschi by Stefano Ciccone addresses all these issues. It was interesting because during my three years at Tampep we had always sought to involve more the male perspective, especially to help us reach out to the clients of the women we helped. Hopefully this joint event has helped Tampep in laying down the groundwork for future projects. In addition to all I learned about working with the public sector and about project theory, development, and management, I think my time with this NGO will really help me in business. Working as they say "on the grassroots level" really gives one perspective on all the many various stakeholders in social and commercial phenomena and on the importance of detail in implementing any project that aims for social change.
