The famous Autogrills where you can stop for a break during a journey are in danger of disappearing. Here’s what changes after over 60 years.
Sometimes waiting for something to arrive is more beautiful than the thing itself and the same can happen during a voyage. Sometimes it is precisely the path and the adventures that you experience during the trip that are most beautiful in the area where you are going to go on vacation.
The adrenaline for the moment of relaxation that you are about to experience or to reach a loved one or sharing the journey with other passengers has a very special flavor that none of us can explain in words.
Autogrill: here’s how they will change
During these journeys, however, especially for long stretches, we need to stop and take refreshments or use the toilets for this reason. For over 60 years, points have been built along the Italian motorways. Autogrill.
These “non-places” are nothing more than refreshment points that are called with the name of the company that created them inside which you can find a catering service and useful products for travelers.
In fact, many roadside restaurants sell confectionery or homemade products, toys, books, magazines and everything else that can be inside a commercial point and that could be used to pass the time during the journey.
Enter a Autogrill for many people it is something truly magical, with the eyes of a child you find yourself in a place of contained dimensions in which there is really everything and sometimes there are products that would not be found elsewhere.
Many Italians have defined as one of the best things of a trip, the typical smell of freshly baked croissants that we can feel during the stop in one of these refreshment points.
This not only intoxicates our senses but makes us more energized and awake and if in the end we buy a croissant and drink coffee, especially if we are driving the vehicle, we will be able to concentrate better on our journey.
Sometimes, within these Autogrill you can have many special encounters, there are many people who have made friends or fell in love thanks to a fortuitous meeting within them.
As it is also often possible to meet famous people who have stopped in one of these points to take a break from a trip after a tour or an evening of concerts.
The agreement
But now something is changing and soon we will have to say goodbye to our loved ones Autogrill that for many years have kept us awake and made us dream thanks to the wonders that are inside.
The Autogrill company has entered into with Dufry an agreement that provides for the creation of a worldwide group of catering services dedicated to all travelers thanks to an exchange of shares.
The shareholder Edition which controls over 50% of Autogrillwill become the new shareholder of the new group that will be created thanks to this agreement and will have a stake that will be between 20% and 25%.
In the Board of Directors there will be this new company Alessandro Benetton as Honorary President while Gianmaria Tondato from Ruos it will be there Executive President of all North American activities.
The shareholder’s stake Edition it will be transferred to the new group starting from the first quarter of 2013 while the mandatory acquisition will be made by the end of the second half of the same year.
At the moment there are no certainties regarding the disappearance of the Autogrill, but almost certainly the Group will want to standardize the refreshment points worldwide and therefore will completely change their face compared to how we know them now.
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