La Fortezza was set up in 1962 to produce shelving for warehouses and archives at Scarperia (FII). The company was named "LaFortezza" after a nearby medieval fortress.
The company entered the world of large-scale retailing in 1980 thanks to a misunderstanding in an offer to a distributor of fittings for supermarkets who did not immediately understand that the Fortezza shelving was not designed for supermarkets but for industrial warehouses. However, the price was so inviting that he convinced the Italian businessmen to invest in the supermarket shelving sector...
The most significant stages in the development which has turned the company into an international group and sector leader can be summed up as follows:
1985: setting up of La Fortezza Sintesi in Forlimpopoli (Fc), with the first offices dedicated to the design of specialised equipment for retail chains;
1991: takeover of Mobiltex in Pianoro (Bo), an important company specialised in the production of checkouts: another decisive step for the official entry of the company in the large-scale retailing world;
1995: setting up of
La Fortezza Sudamericana
in Buenos Aires, the Group’s first non-Italian company which started production of shelving and checkouts in 1998. In 2006 it took over Duplo SA (a leading Argentina company in the checkout sector), confirming the Group’s leadership in Argentina and its positioning on the entire continent;
1997: inauguration of
La Fortezza Asia
based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to satisfy the growing demand of the Asian market;
1998: setting up of
La Fortezza Middle East
based in Dubai, in a strategic area of the rapidly expanding Middle East market;
2001: establishment in Paris of La Fortezza France, with a customer portfolio that now includes the most important retail chains in the world.
2001: setting up of
Playbuy.it,
a company based in Pianoro and operating in the installation and management of systems for DVD trailer viewing and pre-purchase music CD listening inside points of sale;
2002: setting up of
Competence
in Forlì, a company offering 360° consultancy, from planning to installation of points of sale;
2006: on the European chequer board, Russia is one of the most strategically important countries for La Fortezza Group which thus opened more than 700 sqm of sales offices in the Roshinskii Proezd area in Moscow:
La Fortezza Est
;
2007: as part of its continuing expansion, the Group acquired
Alser
, a historic French company in the retail fitting sector since the 1960s. Thanks to this merger of know-how resources, the Group soon became one of the 3 main players on the European market. With Alser, LaFortezza acquired an enormous production plant at Romorantin in France and a strategic branch in Geneva which shortly after became
La Fortezza Suisse
;
2008: La Fortezza open a production plant with more than 8,000 sqm under cover at Stupino, a new technological-industrial centre about a hundred kilometres to the south of Moscow.
2009: after two and a half years, during which Alser underwent reorganisation, La Fortezza France and Alser were merged to form the new company
"LaFortezza-Alser"
.
2010: La Fortezza Iberica , based in Madrid, is working since March 2010.
