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About Us

Until 2012, we were an integral and active part of a strange economy, even if everyone thought it was normal. But who are we? Our names are Claudio (1972) and Alessandro (1980) and here we tell a bit of our story, which has also been the story of Loonity for over 10 years!

Before 2012

Claudio was an entrepreneur in the field of global logistics and spent his weekends with his family near Lugano, where he still lives today, while working for the business world in between his flights. Together with his partner in Vienna, he managed several offices in the US, Europe and Russia, optimizing transportation costs for multinational companies, mainly for car manufacturers and the petrochemical industry. The business flourished and brought good profits, but as globalization progressed, it became increasingly absurd and inhumane from an ethical and moral point of view.
One particularly questionable project consisted of dismantling thousands of cars produced in the USA into 54 individual parts, shipping them to Europe and then reassembling them in Russia to sell them there as new cars - just to save on import duties. Economically a lucrative business, but humanly unbearable for a family man who thought about the future of the next generations and was never content not to ask questions. When his wife told him that their third child was on the way, it was the decisive moment for him. He had to break away from this soulless world - even if it allowed him a comfortable lifestyle.
Alessandro worked in an IT company and met Claudio at work. Although he lived in Italy, he mainly worked in Switzerland for various clients. After studying mechanical engineering, he developed a passion for server management and human-machine interactions. His analytical skills and ability to link technical processes to real-world challenges - a rare combination - made him an exceptional self-taught IT professional. He could repair a computer with a screwdriver as well as work in countless programming languages. With his calm and level-headed manner, he rose to every challenge and quickly familiarized himself with complex topics, so that he was soon respected as an equal expert by professionals.
Our friendship was born at work, but our real common interest was a special passion: authentic, homemade food made from high-quality ingredients. We had real cooking competitions, sending each other photos and messages: "Do you know what I cooked for my family yesterday?" or "I've discovered a new producer!"

Our vision in 2013

During dinner at a recommended restaurant, we began to dream! We imagined a world in which our passion was everyone's passion. Social networks were still new at the time, and we liked the idea of using the Internet and computing not only to exchange ideas and news with people far away, but also to create a transparent, direct and simple link between small producers and consumers in our region. A marketplace that made it possible to recreate the dynamics of traditional "local marketplaces" - places where people with faces (the true seal of quality of a product) returned home happy and satisfied after a greeting and a handshake. The consumers with the certainty of the origin and authenticity of their products, the producers with a fair reward for their work and passion.
Just as we were about to put our dreams back in the drawer, we asked ourselves a crucial question: "If we don't realize this vision with our combined skills - who will?" From that moment on, we were on a mission for the world we wanted to leave to our children. Soon after, we found the right name for our project: by combining Local cOOperation commuNITY, we created Loonity - a term that stands for connection, transparency and responsibility.

From 2014 to 2020: a lot of effort

Founding a company in the globalized economy is easy: once you have convinced investors or major customers, there is money for competent employees, infrastructure and marketing. But our idea was different.
Friends, acquaintances and even potential customers - including cooperatives for local products - thought our idea was great. But as soon as it came to actually buying or actively participating, the enthusiasm fizzled out. "I know that the producers are being exploited and I don't really know where my supermarket products come from, but it's just convenient," was the typical reaction. At the same time, cooperatives at the time were still skeptical about technology, which they saw as the cause of the decline of small food producers.
For six years, Claudio, supported by his tireless wife Daniela, took over the organization: he activated producers throughout Ticino, published their offers, coordinated orders and deliveries, organized pick-ups and trips with a used van, which they financed with their savings. Meanwhile, Alessandro wrote the code for the processes: Order lists, communication with customers, optimization of logistics. Week after week, they managed 1,200 products from 80 small producers for a handful of loyal customers that they were able to lure out of the convenient supermarkets.

From 2020 to 2024: a glimmer of hope

The pandemic period was our most successful marketing campaign! Frightened people who didn't want to leave their homes and found that the supermarkets' online stores were sold out turned to Terranostra and increased our previously modest order volume tenfold in just two weeks.
It was an incredible challenge, but also extremely fulfilling. We never wanted to just build a small online store for our distribution network. Our goal was always to manage numerous "markets" on Loonity with considerable volumes. Nevertheless, our limited numbers often forced us to bring in extra money at the end of the month, after endless hours of unpaid work, to pay bills and the salaries of the employees who supported us and prevented us from having to do everything on our own.
Our painstakingly built infrastructure enabled us to receive 2,600 products on a record day on Wednesday morning, distribute them correctly to 130 customer orders and then deliver them by Thursday lunchtime - partly by home delivery via the post office and partly via our pick-up stations throughout Ticino. The efficiency we demonstrated that day was equivalent to that of a multinational company's IT and logistics system. But the best thing was that it made everyone involved happy - everyone along the supply chain and all consumers.
With the end of the pandemic, customers disappeared again, just like in other online stores in the food sector. They returned to the supermarkets - this time without masks. But one thing had changed: Our vision had become a reality. We had seen that it worked - and it worked brilliantly. We just had to wait for others to recognize it too.
In order to feed our families, we have since realized further projects on a part-time basis and thus started our first real cooperation outside of Ticino in Valposchiavo. In addition to the language, what we have in common with the 100% Bio Valposchiavo project is above all the pragmatic approach: Not just setting goals, but actually implementing them, as well as the determination to find solutions.
Loonity owes a lot to the people in Poschiavo - we have never seen them as customers, but as fully-fledged partners. Thanks to them, Loonity, originally a pure B2C platform, is now also perfectly capable of managing B2B sales without sacrificing a single one of the functions that we have developed with so much commitment in recent years. On the contrary: we have further optimized the platform and made it fully multilingual.

From 2025: More certainties

We look to the future with confidence - with few expectations but many certainties. We know that we can overcome suffering. For years, we have overcome economic and human challenges without losing sight of our goal. We have always been too unconventional to be financed by investors and have no debts or fixed costs that we cannot bear while we wait for a new collaboration.
We have developed an IT system that can be of great benefit to many small initiatives - initiatives that could never afford such a development on their own. Everything we have created, tested and tried in practice is now available. Anyone who wants to get involved in the distribution of local products (or is already doing so and knows the effort involved) can benefit from our experience.
Loonity combines countless findings from our years of optimization tests - whether in communication with customers and producers, in the logistical processes of warehousing and transport, in packaging management or in cooperation with external partners for home deliveries or pick-up stations. Even all billing processes are integrated.
But our greatest certainty is that the world is changing. More and more people are realizing that the price they pay in the supermarket or for industrial food is not just the coins they leave at the checkout.
More and more people are willing to sacrifice a small part of their comfort zone in order to help shape a fairer and more sustainable world - a world in which social control through proximity and getting to know each other is once again at the center of community life.
The words cooperation and community are anchored in our name. And every change begins with what is local to us - just as every major change in the world begins with ourselves.
May the wind be with us - and with all those who take the risk to dare something for a world that we have already seen in our vision and that we hope to be able to share with many people in Switzerland and beyond soon!

Thank you very much and see you next time!

Addvalyou SA - 6924 Sorengo - Switzerland
Loonity is a registered trademark of Addvalyou SA - © 2014 - 2025