Consumer rights' associations angry over an alleged increase in the price of staple foods are retaliating with a 'pasta strike'.
Codacons, Adoc, Adusbef and Federconsumatori, Italy's top consumer groups, are calling on Italians to forego all food shopping on Thursday.
If nothing else, they want shoppers to shun pasta, which has been chosen as the symbol of their protest.
According to the associations, the price of pasta, bread and milk has shot up by as much as 20% in the past two months.
The groups say other foodstuffs such as olive oil, coffee and breakfast cereals are also costing a lot more.
As part of their protest, the associations say they will distribute free pasta, bread and milk in the main squares of Italian cities including the piazza in front of parliament in Rome.
"We want the government to proclaim a price emergency and intervene immediately with measures to bring down prices by 5%," said Carlo Rienzi, the head of Codacons.
Rienzi stressed that consumers also faced hikes in their energy and water bills.
"Thousands of families will find themselves bankrupt after these increases," Rienzi said.
Farmers have given their backing to the protest.
Farmers' union Coldiretti told reporters that increases in the price of bread and pasta had "nothing to do with wheat prices, which have remained the same since 1985".
"But since then, the gap between the price of wheat and the price of a loaf has increased 750%," said Coldiretti representative Stefano Masini.
Coldiretti called for measures to promote the direct sale of their produce to shoppers, such as permits to hold farmers' markets.
Rienzi said that "the gap between the money the farmer receives and the money the consumer is forced to fork out at the retail end is absurd and criminal and must be eliminated. Farmers and shoppers are being robbed".
"We want farmers to earn more and shoppers to spend less," he said.
The centre-left government has sought to play down the row, saying that there is "no justification for the recent price alarm".
But it has agreed to hold a round of talks later this week with representatives of all sectors in the food production and retail chain.
The government argued last month that recent surges in international grain and dairy markets could not influence consumer prices in a "significant way".
It nonetheless urged central and local authorities to monitor price trends at shops and supermarkets and ensure "market and competition transparency".
Consumer groups reacted angrily to the government's stance, saying: "It is living on another planet".
They accused the government of collecting its price data from the supermarkets themselves and called for "alternative and independent" checks.
They said that retailers were exploiting the market supply situation to justify the rises.
Coldiretti noted on Monday that pasta sales had fallen 5.6% and bread sales 6.1% since the start of the year, attributing the drop to higher prices.
