Fiocchi

Fiocchi Munizioni SpA

The ammunition company founded in 1876 now operates as Fiocchi Munizioni SpA. Still headquartered in Lecco, it is owned wholly by the umbrella entity, Giulio Fiocchi Holding. I was told about seventy Fiocchi family members have shares in the holding company. Fiocchi of America is one of the international divisions wholly owned by Fiocchi Munizioni. Current executives are cousins and fourth generation descendants of Giulio and Giacomo.

Fiocchi of America

In partnership with Smith & Wesson, the Fiocchi family had a factory in Alton, Illinois in the 1950’s. Diverging company interests caused Fiocchi to sell its share to S & W and withdraw from the American market. Great grandson Carlo Fiocchi joined the family business in 1980 at the age of 24 and worked as a product manager in charge of the English speaking market, his assignment no doubt influenced by the fact that his grandmother was British. In 1983, a FOA facility was built in Springfield, Missouri, to import ammunition, the location selected because of his father’s existing contacts there and that it offered the most favorable rail and trucking costs.

After a year and a half they realized that importing loaded ammunition was not an effective business model. The company couldn’t react fast enough to the needs of the US shooters. Carlo returned to Italy and convinced the president, Paolo, to build a manufacturing plant on a farm he identified in the Ozarks near Springfield. In a grand cosmic manner, history repeated itself, for the farmer was defaulting on property loans. Fiocchi negotiated a purchase with the farmer and loans with the bank. Providing a platform for quality manufacturing jobs, the Fiocchi enterprise was enthusiastically welcomed by the local government.

Carlo received substantial assistance from his mentor, Bob Oxsen. They started the company in 1984 but Fiocchi Munizioni requested that Carlo return to Italy to work in its sales and marketing department. He remained in Italy until 1996, then left to create his own consulting firm in the United States. During the next decade Carlo worked in an array of ammunition, optics and shotgun importing businesses. As the third generation Fiocchi family passed control to the fourth, Carlo’s cousins Stefano, and Pietro, who became President of Fiocchi of America, persuaded him to return to the Fiocchi fold. The minimal sales of FOA and its marginal market share evoked contemplation of dissolving the US division, reminiscent of the choice facing the Fiocchi family after WW II .

Nevertheless, in 2005, Pietro, Carlo and Donna Swafford, Chief Operations Manager, boldly attempted to revitalize company in April 2005. Due in large measure to their acumen, since then FOA sales have increased 500%. The US subsidiary imports empty primed hulls from Fiocchi Munizioni and wads from Italy, produced mainly by Baschieri & Pellagri and Gualandi in Bologna, a world capital of machine shop engineering, home to Ferraris and Lamborghinis and the ancestral home of the Fiocchi family.