“From Moplen to Ducati. Plastic is our life”

Mascagni Award. Valeria Pizzoli and Lairt, founded in 1962.

Bologna, 9 September 2014 – OTHER times those in which a young pastry chef can afford, in the rare free hours, to buy a manual press in company with a friend and start a small production of plastic clips to round off. And, perhaps, fifty years later, he left his grandchildren with a gem of 27 employees, a 4.3 million euro turnover and the Umiq certification (the first company in Bologna to obtain it) for the assessment of the company’s innovative potential .
Valeria Pizzoli, that pastry chef was his father-in-law, and the company is Lairt.
«It is an acronym, which stands for Processing articles thermoplastic resin injection. Athos Belelli started it as a small artisan business in 1957, in a small workshop rented in Via Decumana where he took refuge after work. But in 1962 the turnover had already become such that it forced him to make a choice. So he dropped the pastry shop, rented 300 square meters of shed here in Via Emilia Ponente and founded Lairt.».
Would she have arrived shortly thereafter?
«I joined the company in 1967. I was the young girlfriend of his son Paolo, whom Athos Belelli immediately wanted to join him in 1962 as a partner. But he was 17, and at the time he became an adult at 21. So he had to start the practices to ’emancipate him’, then he did so.».
But was it really so easy, at the time, to enter a market from scratch and become a leader?
«The markets were not a problem. If anything, the real problem was the skills, which no one had at the time. So it happened that those who, by dint of working, became good, like my father-in-law and his son, immediately did good business. And then, consider, it was the years of Moplen: in a few years the world would have been revolutionized by that new plastic».

What was the turning point for you?
«The first order for Giordani, the giant of toys and prams from Casalecchio. We came to work almost exclusively for them. We worked ‘like the Chinese’, as they say: night and day, Saturdays and Sundays, in order to respect the deliveries for them».
Until the real Chinese arrived, and Giordani failed. What did you do?
«We looked elsewhere. On the other hand, we now have a specific name and competence. From that moment we started working for the automotive world and for Ducati, with whom we still work today. Together with Ferrari and other brands».
Many plastic molding companies have closed or switched to other materials. You have always grown up so far. What is the secret of your longevity?
«Reliability, which generates strong relations. You see, we have customers with whom we work constantly, every month, for half a century».
Meanwhile, Moplen is no longer there: has plastic changed a lot?
«Totally. It has diversified, it has improved, it has refined. If I think about the cost of certain types of plastic we work with … 90 euros per kilo. Jewelery stuff».
Today his daughters are at the helm of the company. Where do you look at the third generation of Belelli?
«We aim to merge with our partner company, which produces molds for us. And in doing so we expect to enlarge the plant. It is the market that asks for it. And the market, by itself, is right.».

source Il Resto del Carlino