Whilst imitation leather goods and clothes purporting to be “made in Italy” have worried Italian companies and successive governments for some time, in recent months imitation food products have been the focus of both the Guardia di Finanza and policy makers at the Farming Union, Coldiretti.
Cheese, salame, olive oil, pasta, canned tomatoes, wine: all these and more have been counterfeited and sold abroad and Coldiretti exhibited some examples at the Forum Internazionale dell’agricoltura e alimentazione at Cernobbio last weekend. Among the exhibits were: Australian “ricotta”, Swedish “Fontina”, Californian “Chianti” and “mortadella” made from turkey meat which was on sale in the USA.
Coldiretti estimates that three out of four “Italian” food products sold abroad are counterfeit, doing enormous damage to Italy’s reputation and economy for, if the counterfeit trade were stopped, the country’s food exports could increase fourfold. A real fear is that overseas consumers will get used to the bland, imitation products and keep buying them even when the real thing is on offer. The countries selling the most imitation food products are Australia, New Zealand and the USA.
Nor is the problem confined to food products sold abroad: last week the Veneto Guardia di Finanza confiscated 15 tons of food products in Padua after carrying out checks in ethnic minimarkets, shops, restaurants and warehouses. They found all kinds of foods which were past their use-by dates or which were unlabelled and / or undocumented. 600 kilos of meat with forged labels were found in a Chinese restaurant in the Province of Venice.
Coldiretti is calling for Italian and European legislation which would make it compulsory to declare the place of origin of all food products on their labels.
