Eridania Commits €20 Million to Italian Sugar Logistics and Sweetener Production

Eridania, the brand that leads Italy's sugar and sweetener markets, has announced a €20 million investment plan aimed at reinforcing its historic sugar business and accelerating the development of sweeteners. The company posted turnover of €217 million in 2025, a figure that includes products marketed on behalf of Srb. The plan was set out in a company note on 16 September and reported by Adnkronos and ANSA.

Roughly 75% of the money is earmarked for logistics and a new warehouse at the Russi plant, in the province of Ravenna, which Eridania intends to turn into its reference hub for the entire Mediterranean area of Europe. The remaining quarter will fund the expansion and innovation of the sweetener segment.

One national entry point for French sugar

The logistics project is due for completion in the first months of 2028. According to the company note carried by Adnkronos, it amounts to a deep restructuring of the national distribution network for sugar, a segment that currently generates about 90% of Eridania's retail turnover. The new Russi hub will replace the existing platform at Cervia and will allow the company to rationalise its relationships with the outsourced logistics centres in the North-West, which until now have been served directly from the French plant of the Cristal Union group.

Under the new configuration, Russi becomes the only point of entry into Italy for sugar coming from France, moved by rail with a residual share by road. The site will also become the centre of packaging operations and of supplies destined for the Italian market.

The change affects the way sugar physically reaches Italian customers. Part of the volume has so far bypassed Eridania's own network, arriving at outsourced warehouses in the North-West straight from France. Concentrating those flows at Russi centralises reception, storage and dispatch for the domestic market in a single location.

• A new logistics area of more than 10,000 square metres
• Capacity for up to 95 containers, equivalent to about 2.5 rail convoys
• Completion scheduled for the first months of 2028
• Replacement of the Cervia platform as the national distribution base

Sweetener processing moves in-house

The second strand of the plan targets the sweetener department, where Eridania will internalise the main processing activities currently entrusted to external operators. Production will be developed at the Russi plant.

The segment is growing faster than the core business. Nielsen data cited by the company show sweeteners up 5% in value and 8% in units in the first six months of 2026, measured across the modern distribution perimeter with figures to 28 June 2026. The company says the category continues to see innovation and new product launches.

Bringing the work inside also reshapes the industrial profile of Russi, which will host both packaging for the Italian sugar market and sweetener production. Sugar remains the dominant contributor at roughly 90% of retail turnover, leaving sweeteners as the smaller but faster-moving part of the portfolio.

Savings, volumes and emissions

Eridania expects the plan as a whole to generate structural savings of about €1.5 million a year. The reorganisation should also lift distributed volumes by 20% within three years, on the back of greater supply chain efficiency and the concentration of activities in a single national hub.

The company also places the project within its sustainability reporting, having just published its 2025 report. Centralising logistics flows and making greater use of rail transport will significantly cut the kilometres travelled by road and the emissions associated with distribution, according to the note.

The published note did not detail employment effects, the capacity of the new packaging lines, or any further breakdown of the €20 million beyond the split between logistics and sweeteners.