Press Release

A concrete cultural and social commitment in response to the expo's theme: Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life

Granarolo presents cultural heritage enhancement and social support initiatives which will be taken to Expo 2015

The "Nursing Madonna", by Renaissance sculptor Francesco di Simone Ferrucci, on show in the Italian Pavilion in the Granarolo space, courtesy of the Cardinale Giacomo Lercaro Foundation of Bologna.

"Africa Milk Project" - an international cooperation project for self-development promoted by the Granarolo Group in collaboration with CEFA Onlus, one of the main exhibitors in Pavilion Zero - receives first prize for Best Practice at Expo 2015.

Bologna, 28 April 2015 – Granarolo S.p.A. the largest industrial agricultural operator in the Country under Italian capital, announced today, during a press conference in Bologna, that they will be present at EXPO 2015 also in order to tackle the theme Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life, balancing attention to memory (the present of the past, as Saint Augustine defined it) with a constant tension towards the future (vision and expectation, present of the present and present of the future, respectively, in the Augustinian theory). For the entire duration of the Universal Exposition, in the Granarolo space - which was designed by the MCA Studios under Architect Mario Cucinella (for the concept and architectural aspects) and Tarpini Production under Engineer Paolo Tarpini (for the edutainment aspects) - an intensive program will be organised with culture, personal dignity and common good as a foundation.

A food rich in symbolism in almost all the world’s cultures, milk is the fluid of eternal life, emblem of fertility and abundance. It is the first human food and therefore closely linked to the very source of life. The Ancient Greeks gave its name to the Galaxy par excellence and still today the collective imagination sees milk as the start of creation, depositary of fertility, birth and growth. A food and element with universal meaning, it is perfect as the star of an installation that speaks to

all peoples. The Granarolo space in the Italian Pavilion will explore the theme of milk as a creative principle and will contemplate the meaning of this food as the first and most precious source of nutrition for man. For this reason, the project takes the shape of an artificial galaxy that starts inside the exhibition path of the Cardo, generating an intangible space capable of welcoming visitors into an atmosphere (between memory, vision, and expectation) that must be explored one step at a time.

BETWEEN THE PAST AND THE FUTURE Granarolo hosts one of the most beautiful representations of the Nursing Madonna in the Italian Pavilion

The image of a mother breastfeeding her child is present in all cultures. It is the very symbol of Mother Earth, maternity, fertility, and continuity through the generations. These are the symbols of past and present that Granarolo identifies with the most. This is where we got the idea, for Expo 2015, to host one of the most beautiful representations of the Nursing Madonna, recently rediscovered and not yet well-known among the general public, courtesy of the Cardinale Giacomo Lercaro Foundation in Bologna. It is a very precious high relief sculpture portraying a Nursing Madonna, replicating the round marble sculpture inserted in the lunette of the Tartagni sepulchre, a marvellous marble monument in the basilica of Saint Dominic by the sculptor from Fiesole Francesco di Simone Ferrucci (1437- 1493). The relief has recently been subjected to conservative restoration work, carried out with the contribution of the Fondazione del Monte of Bologna and Ravenna. Thanks to laboratory tests, it was possible to come up with a theoretical date, setting the work in a period somewhere between the last decade of the Fifteenth century and the beginning of the Sixteenth. The public will have the chance to see this small masterpiece. The Cardinale Giacomo Lercaro Foundation will be available on various days to give more detailed information.

The walls of the Granarolo space will also show the public other famous representations of the Nursing Madonna, to be discovered in various cities around .

“The first time we saw this Nursing Madonna, at the Lercaro Foundation just after restoration work, it had never been exhibited before, and we were in awe of its strength and beauty”, declared Gianpiero Calzolari, President of Granarolo, who continues: “we were about to confirm our presence at Expo 2015 and we tentatively asked Monseigneur Vecchi for the opportunity to show it. We were surprised by his great friendliness and a sort of artistic alliance was established with the Lercaro Foundation, which has also supported us in the choice of many other details to be found in our space. We have started a journey with them. Father Dall'Asta, the artistic director of the Foundation, and Francesca Passerini, who is responsible for the study on this Madonna, will be with us on many occasions during the six months of the exposition. At the end of that time, the Madonna will return to Bologna, to the Lercaro Foundation, but Granarolo intends to continue this collaboration with the museum, taking on the restoration of a large collection of precious archaeological materials belonging to Cardinal Giacomo Lercaro's antique art collection. This is a large collection of ceramics dating back to the period between the 7th and 4th centuries B.C. and used in grave goods for offerings and libations: from beautiful vases created for solid foods, to those made for pouring, dipping, and drinking liquids. All of great value and in need of restoration. The past is a memory."

Father Andrea Dall'Asta, director of the Lercaro Collection in Bologna, explains: "The Lercaro Collection is happy to begin this journey of collaboration with Granarolo. The result of this relationship is marked by the exhibition, in the international context of Expo 2015, of a work of art specifically linked with the history of the city of Bologna. This shows how there can be no development without an appreciation of the cultural heritage that represents the deep identity of any territory. Indeed, to appreciate art and culture is to consider the soul of a society, to take into account its past. Not to look at it with nostalgia, but to focus on its memory as a foundation for choices concerning the future. In particular, the work chosen to culturally represent Granarolo at Expo 2015 is a Nursing Madonna, which - throughout our history - has always been a symbol of maternity and, therefore, of life. And precisely in a consumerist society in which laws are dictated by financial logic, to speak of fertility takes on a specific value: against any nihilistic tendencies that tend to destroy the fundamental values, we are led to reflect on what is happening in our society, in order to give new-found vitality to a Western world that is becoming increasingly forgetful of its past."

BETWEEN THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE The Africa Milk Project, created by Granarolo and CEFA Onlus in Njombe (Tanzania), is awarded as the Best Practice and becomes a positive model for self- development.

With the "Africa Milk Project: love your land, fight poverty, drink your milk”, CEFA the seed of solidarity, Granarolo, the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the NjoLIFA Livestock Association in Tanzania win first prize as Best Practice in the category: “Sustainable development of small rural communities in marginal areas”.

There were 800 projects in the competition, examined by a committee made up of people of the calibre of photographer Sebastiao Salgado, Maurizio Martina, Minister of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies, Vandana Shiva, Director of the International Globalisation Forum and Vice President of Slow Food, and Emma Bonino, ex Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Union Commissioner. Africa Milk Project came first in its category: "Sustainable development of small rural communities in marginal areas" (www.feedingknowledge.net). As a result, it will be one of the 5 projects that will be presented as Best Practices in food safety on a world level in Pavilion Zero, the space developed in collaboration with the United Nations and entrusted with the task of introducing the forecasted 20 million visitors to the theme of the universal exposition in Milan. The project will be presented with a film made by Expo 2015, which will be shown for 6 months in Pavilion Zero and with a short film in the Granarolo Space in the Italian Pavilion: the two videos tell the story of the "heroes" of this small miracle. "This project is a social dairy and an "inclusive development model". It distributes income to numerous members of a community: the 800 cattle farmers who supply milk every day, and who wouldn't have a market for it otherwise, and the workers at the dairy/cheese factory and their families," explained Paolo Chesani, director of Cefa Onlus. “Economic rationale would have recommended collecting the milk from one large farm with a few hundred heads of cattle, but instead we decided to involve 800 small family-run farms - over 5000 people - with 2 or 3 cows each. This was a real challenge, but we are convinced that real development cannot exist in a country like Tanzania if the benefits of growth are not redistributed as widely as possible. Thanks to this virtuous circle, this dairy has today gone from being a funded project to a company whose shareholders are also the beneficiary partners." Paolo Chesani finishes saying: “In this way, the local businesses involved were put in a position to autonomously take on the project activities, creating long-term sustainability". “We have supported a project that copies the cooperative model that is the very base of Granarolo itself, in one of the poorest areas in Tanzania. We have supported it over time,

with the tenacity of those who wanted to see it take off, inspired by the historic founder of Cefa Onlus, Senator Giovanni Bersani, who died recently, and his team. They were constantly at our side, urging us to take on missions that went far beyond the logics of mere aid”, explains Gianpiero Calzolari, President of Granarolo, the company that has believed in and actively supported this project since 2004. “Today the Njombe dairy-cheese factory is standing on its own legs thanks to the Africans (so many) in the dairy, the local women, who look after the farms and the animals, the Cefa collaborators and Granarolo employees, always proactive with their skills. We are convinced that this model can be exported to bring tangible job opportunities to other farmers and dairy workers with the production of pasteurised, and therefore safe, milk to lots of children worldwide”. “The prize to the Africa Milk Project, co-funded by the Cooperazione Italiana, is important recognition of the ability of players in the Italy System to identify effective solutions to the challenges of nutrition”, commented Giampaolo Cantini, General Director for Development Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “This is a valid example of how it is possible to promote development by creating alliances between the no-profit world, the private sector, in particular the world of cooperatives, and public institutions”.

PROJECT OVERVIEW Every day, the Njombe Milk Factory receives 3200 litres of milk from 800 local farmers who own a maximum of 2 or 3 dairy cows. Once brought “by hand” or collected with a truck, the milk is pasteurised. Once a week, a certain amount is distributed at a low price to 58 schools in the Njombe district (in southern Tanzania) reaching a catchment area that today numbers 28,000 schoolchildren. The calcium in the milk is fundamental in children's diets. Part of the milk is sold and a small amount is donated to hospitals and orphanages locally. The rest becomes yoghurt, sold in local markets, and various kinds of cheese. , and especially are sold in the most important cities in Tanzania and on the island of Zanzibar. In the beginning, the aim of this project was to improve life in rural communities and develop the district's economy; today it is a business that is starting to show a profit.

Granarolo Group

The Granarolo Group, one of the top players in the Italian food and agriculture sector, includes two different and synergic parts: a consortium of milk producers - Granlatte - operating in the agricultural sector and collecting the raw material - and a joint stock company - Granarolo S.p.A. - which processes the milk at 12 production sites throughout Italy and 2 in France and markets the finished product.

The Granarolo group is therefore the most important milk supply chain in Italy, with producer cooperatives as its major shareholders. It unites approximately 1,000 dairy farmers, an organisation of milk collection from farms with 70 vehicles, 1,200 vehicles for distribution delivering 750,000 metric tonnes a year and every day serving some 50,000 sales points where almost 11 million Italian families buy Granarolo products.

The Group’s in-house laboratories analyse the entire production chain daily, from the milk to the finished product, to guarantee consumers with quality products and high safety standards. The Group also avails of external quality controls carried out by international certification bodies, qualified and guaranteed by the International Food Standard (IFS), the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and the EU organic food certification (CCPB). Since 2002, the production process has had ISO 9001 quality management certification.

The Granarolo Group has about 2100 employees as of 31/12/2014. 77.48% of the Group is owned by the Granlatte Consortium, 19.78% by Intesa Sanpaolo and the remaining 2.74% by Cooperlat.

In 2014 the Group generated a turnover of more than one Billion Euro.

The Art Collection of the Cardinale Giacomo Lercaro Foundation in Bologna.

The Collection of the "Raccolta Lercaro" Gallery of Modern Art includes works by Giacomo Manzù, Francesco Messina, Augusto Murer, Eugenio Pellini, Arnaldo and Giò Pomodoro, Vittorio Tavernari, Adolfo Wildt and many others. Among the paintings and pieces of graphic art, works by Giacomo Balla, Giorgio Morandi, Filippo de Pisis, Renato Guttuso and Emilio Ambron.

CEFA - The seed of solidarity Onlus

All men and women, even the poorest and most alienated, can improve their own life if they are supported and accompanied. For more than 40 years, CEFA has been working in Africa and Latin America in close contact with the most discriminated rural communities, in order to help them develop their potential: they are taught how to farm the land reasonably, so that they can live off of their harvest and, where possible, the foundations are laid for the creation of cooperatives and businesses because only work can move humanity towards the future. For more information: www.cefaonlus.it ***

Granarolo S.p.A. Communication and Corporate Affairs

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The Art Collection of the Lercaro Foundation in Bologna - Communication

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CEFA - The seed of solidarity Onlus - Communication and Fund Raising

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