The new colors of Benetton, from wool white to hydrogen green

It can be said that the powerful Benetton group has changed ships around the world and also in Argentina. From the clothing business that revolutionized gray and black fashion with its colors, we have moved on to highways, insurance companies and airports, although it still has 5,000 stores spread across different continents.

And in Argentina it is diversify a model based on sheep, cattle, cereals and potatoes in its immense tracts of land. For now, they collaborate with an international giant for manufacturing green hydrogen at his Coronel ranch, located in Puerto San Julián, Santa Cruz. And they build a sawmill transform the forest of their pine plantations. There have been 10,000 wooded hectares since 1992.

the starting point

The starting point dates back to the 1960s in Treviso, a small town in the Veneto region, when Luciano, Gilberto, Giuliana and Carlo joined forces to make sweaters.

In 2021 in Italy and after overcoming the anguish for the death of two of the brothers, Carlo and Gilberto; Luciano and Giuliana have decided to leave the leadership of the company, which bill US $ 10,000 million, in the hands of their descendants. Of four brothers, Benetton is now run by 14 cousins.

Carlo arrived in Argentina in 1983 and bought a 16,000-hectare farm in Balcarce, which he named Santa Marta for his faith and built a chapel. They are the leading potato producer and the largest Canadian McCain supplier.

In 1991 they bought more than 900,000 hectares in Patagonia from the Paz, Menéndez and Ochoa e families became the largest wool producer. With the Faimali refrigeratorlead in lamb exports. It has kosher, halal, organic certification and Patagonian designation of origin.

Argentina has joined the international holding and generates some of them 35 million dollars a year. They employ 300 people who double in size during the shearing and harvesting times.

Management in Argentina

At the head of this part of the group is Leone Benetton, son of Carlo. In 2019 Agustín Dranovsky, now 42, an international trade expert whose baptism of fire was at the Ministry of Economy in the dramatic 2002 was appointed CEO. He then worked in the Bermejo group of the Born and Pereda families.

“Our shareholders have been present in the country for more than 40 years and they have all been through it. This does not blind them and they continue to see opportunities. “tells Clarione on the project to produce hydrogen using the winds from the south.

This vision includes the millionaire investment for a sawmill. “Producing in Argentina means lowering costs and increasing productivity to dilute setbacks due to the exchange rate gap, inflation and high tax burden. But to be efficient you need to invest “, judgement.

Thus, quality certifications, sheep management involving the integration of their feed, avoiding excessive grazing, planning and organizing transfers in the harsh Patagonian winter, are some tools.

Another chapter is genetic improvement in the Leleque huts, in Chubut and Cóndor, in Santa Cruz, reference of the Australians, sheep samples. They are vertically integrated in a process that starts from the breeding of 250,000 heads up to the collection of 880,000 kilos of wool. They are number one, despite the fact that their sheep population has decreased by 25% partly due to guanacos and pumas.

Most of the merino and corriedale sheep’s wool goes to China, Italy and Egypt, with prices once again smile at $ 6 a kilo.

Mapuche people settled in three areas of these camps. Benetton organized a scheme isolating those areas. Dranovsky defines that situation as “calm tense” It is not cheap.