Barilla Enters Global Top 10 for Corporate Reputation, Leads Food Sector for Third Straight Year
Barilla has ranked 9th overall in the 2026 Global RepTrak 100, a jump of 16 positions from 25th in 2025, and has now led the food sector in the annual ranking for three consecutive years. The study, conducted by RepTrak across 14 countries since 1999, scores companies on performance, innovation, governance, sustainability, and long-term trust generation.
The result lands in a difficult environment for food companies. RepTrak’s EMEA Vice President Sara Fargion noted that the sector is absorbing sustained inflationary pressure and heightened media scrutiny, making upward movement in reputation metrics genuinely rare.
Barilla operates across more than 100 countries with 30 production sites and annual output exceeding two million tons of pasta, ready-made sauces, and bakery products. In November the group opened BITE—Barilla Innovation & Technology Experience—in Parma, a research and development center housing 200 food technologists, engineers, and designers working on new products, production processes, and packaging, connected to an open-innovation network of universities and research institutions.
Recent product recognition includes two consecutive Italian Product of the Year awards: Barilla Al Bronzo in the pasta category in 2025, and Barilla Protein+ in 2026, both chosen by panels of more than 12,000 consumers via Circana research.
On the sustainability side, Barilla reported a 45% increase in recycled and reused water volume in 2024 versus 2022, with a 164% improvement in water-stressed areas specifically. The group also maintains global gender pay equity since 2020 and a gender-neutral parental leave policy guaranteeing 12 fully paid weeks for both parents across its workforce of nearly 9,000.