Presented the Report “Italy’s 1000 Historical Trademarks of National Interest”
16 April, 2026
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Presented the Report “Italy’s 1000 Historical Trademarks of National Interest”
On April 15, 2026, on the National Made in Italy Day, the Report “Italy’s 1000 Historical Trademarks of National Interest,” produced by the Association of Italian Historical Trademarks on data from the Special Register established at the Ministry of Business and Made in Italy, was presented.
The Report accompanies the achievement of the symbolic threshold of 1,000 trademarks registered in the Registry, confirming the growing relevance of this tool as a guardian of protection, enhancement and recognition of the national production heritage.
The analysis returns a structured economic system, spread throughout the territory and strongly integrated in the main Made in Italy supply chains. As of March 2026, there are 780 Historical Trademarks companies for which economic data are available, generating a total turnover of 93.6 billion euros and providing employment for 363,201 people.
Within this perimeter, companies traceable to the four “A’s” of Made in Italy – Agribusiness and Wines, Automation and Mechanics, Clothing and Fashion, and Furniture and Home – represent the backbone of the system, with 76.1 billion euros in turnover, accounting for more than 81 percent of the total detected.
The Report also shows a significant growth in the overall economic size compared to previous surveys, both due to an expansion in the number of companies on the registry and an increase in the turnover of existing companies.
Regional distribution confirms the strength of northern manufacturing clusters: Lombardy leads the ranking in terms of turnover (49.1 percent) and number of brands (28.3 percent), followed by Veneto (14.2 percent) and Piedmont (12.9 percent). However, a deep rootedness emerges throughout the country, with regional systems such as Emilia-Romagna, Veneto and Tuscany showing an incidence of the “4 A’s” close to or above 80 percent. From a sectoral perspective, the Registry is structurally industrial in nature: 88 percent of companies operate in manufacturing, where Agribusiness (44 percent of the total) and Automation-Mechanics (25 percent) maintain the role of economic and numerical pillars.
Eighty percent of companies assign the Historical Trademark a very high strategic value. Seventy percent integrate it into institutional materials and 46 percent directly on packaging. Although the use of the international version “Italian Historical Trademark” is still limited to 25 percent, almost half of the companies (46 percent) plan to use it in the future, signaling a strong desire to grow in global markets as a tool to counter Italian Sounding.
As a whole, the study offers an organic reading of the Historical Trademarks system, highlighting the contribution of these companies to the country’s competitiveness, the productive continuity of territories and the enhancement of Italy’s industrial heritage.