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news
Bianchi Factory 2023 (via Bianchi)Bianchi announces plans for new carbon frame factory in Italy
Work has begun on a brand new Bianchi factory and headquarters in the Treviglio region of Italy, the company’s CEO Fabrizio Scalzotto announced on Thursday.
The plans for a 30,000 square metre facility, first announced in July, include 17,000 square metres devoted to bike production, and the creation of an on-site Bianchi Museum aimed at attracting tourists to the area. The work is scheduled to be completed in 2023 and is expected to cost around £35 million.
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The new site will employ over 250 people, with the project hoping to revitalise one of northern Italy’s traditional industrial heartlands by resituating most of Bianchi’s carbon-fibre frame production on Italian soil. The company hopes to increase its Italy-based production from 250 bikes a day to over 1,000 units each shift.
Earlier this year Scalzotto claimed it was “now or never” when it came to returning control of the manufacturing process to Italy, as logistical disruptions due to Covid-19 and the US-China trade war saw order times extended to between 500 and 700 days. It's something fellow Italian bike brand 3T has also done, announcing back in June that it was moving its carbon frame manufacturing in-house.
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"Key to Bianchi's vision and strategy is the beginning of a re-shoring process, bringing back to Italy the technical and production capacities that had been outsourced outside of Europe in previous decades," Scalzotto said on Thursday.
Bianchi’s president and owner Salvatore Grimaldi reaffirmed this commitment to home-grown production, saying, "Growing and developing companies is the challenge that fascinates me more than any other, and today we are embracing a new one: creating at Bianchi one of the most advanced bicycle manufacturing plants in the world. We feel proud to have chosen Treviglio for this renewal and for our future. Treviglio will be home not only of a technological and designer factory, but of a leading, ambitious company with a global vision.”
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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8 comments
To quote the head of Miele bicycles, who put 'Made in Italy' stickers on his Canadian-made bicycles....
"My workers are Italian; my parts are Italian; my machinery is Italian; I am Italian. My bicycles are Italian, made in Canada."
So there!
I wonder whether it will be staffed with Italian workers....or imported Chinese workers, which is what the Italian fashion industry did to lower costs whilst still being able to label the goods 'Made in Italy?'
That said, I've always wanted a celeste Bianchi. No room at the inn, however.
No it won't be. What you are referring to is workshops (often illegel) set up and run by Chinese immigrants who sell their produce around Europe. It is also true that some Italian companies subcontract to Chinese run producers of garments . Whilst there may be connivance in some instances it is not correct to say that the Chinese workers were 'imported'. They were in Italy and offering a service. Bianchi were subcontracting to a factory in China. If they continue to run a legal operation in Italy Bianchi will have to pay local wages - whatever the nationality of the worker.
"The plans for a 325,000 square foot facility include 180,000 square metres devoted to bike production"
Mixing units can lead to big mistakes. 180,000 square meters would be almost two million square feet. I'm pretty sure there's something wrong in the reporting there
You beat me to it by hours. My first thought when I read this was 'show me the arithmetic for that'. Penned by Diane Abbot perhaps????
I hope they are successful and my second hope is that I live long enough and fit enough to buy one.
It's the components supply that is causing issues with complete bike availability, so this won't help in that regard. Unless Campagnolo can manufacture even it's lower end groupsets in Italy..and improve their quality.
Quick, Thomas, quick - write to Bianchi HQ now and tell them they're about to make a huge mistake. Then write to Campagnolo too and ask them to finally improve the quality of their products. They will both hire you as a consultant.
It's worth watching this, Bianchi quality, the latest fork steerer failure, with catastrophic consequences. They need to improve their design and manufacturing no question about that. https://youtu.be/MuqGd247-Qk