Barilla will invest 100 million euros to turn its Foggia plant into an integrated pasta hub, building a new-generation mill next to the existing pasta factory. The work is scheduled between 2028 and 2030 and aims to replicate the model the group already uses in Parma, bringing milling and pasta making into the same site.
Announced on 18 September, the move is part of a wider reorganisation of Barilla's industrial footprint in southern Italy. Alongside the Puglia investment, the group is in advanced talks to sell its Marcianise plant, near Caserta, to Pastificio Liguori and the Altamura and Castelplanio mills to Molino Casillo. Barilla says job continuity for the people involved is a precondition, and the sites being sold will keep producing for the group under multi-year supply contracts. Talks with trade unions started the same day.
The core of the project is logistics. With the mill and the pasta factory on one site, durum wheat is milled into semolina and turned into pasta in the same place. Barilla has used that model since 2009 at Pedrignano, near Parma, known as Pasta City, which runs around the clock and turns out between 1,000 and 1,400 tonnes a day. According to the company, the Foggia hub will improve production and logistics efficiency and the plant's sustainability, serving both the Italian and international markets.
The location is one of the symbols of Italian cereal farming. The province of Foggia is the heart of the country's grain belt, and the new mill moves industrial processing closer to the raw material, in a sector where energy costs, transport and international competition squeeze margins.
On the financial side, Barilla closed 2025 with consolidated revenue of 4.837 billion euros, down 0.9 per cent year on year, Ebitda of 579 million, up 7.8 per cent, and net profit of 233 million. The group employs 8,823 people worldwide, with an export-to-revenue ratio estimated at 70 per cent, led by Europe and the United States, and 30 production sites split evenly between Italy and abroad, serving more than 100 countries with annual output above 2 million tonnes.
The Puglia investment adds to a modernisation plan worth 168 million euros through 2030 for energy efficiency, water resources and renewable power. In 2025 alone the group spent 30 million euros to expand solar capacity at its plants, Foggia among them, and more than 47 million euros on research, development and quality. In Parma it has also opened BITE, its global innovation hub, linked to a network of 84 universities and research centres.
On the disposals, Molino Casillo has confirmed the talks for the two plants. The Corato-based group, Italy's leading milling operator with revenue of 1.2 billion euros and twelve plants, aims to give continuity to two complementary sites: Altamura, in the heart of a durum wheat district, and Castelplanio, a reference point for cereals from Marche, Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio. The deal sits within more than sixty years of industrial cooperation with Barilla.
Puglia's regional president, Antonio Decaro, called the investment important news for Foggia, for Puglia and for the whole productive system of the South, while the regional government said it will follow the project and the talks with unions. Two variables will decide the outcome: whether the hub converts the 100 million euros into stable jobs, since no hiring figure was given, and how far the project integrates with local farming, which determines how much value stays in the area.
Sources
