What are the essential characteristics of a good product ?

What are the characteristics of a ‘typical’ product ?

The way imitations are carried out

Who is damaged?

What it is possible to do

What are the essential characteristics of a good product ? top

Primarily, those that are perceived by the senses. This is undoubtedly the main criterion that determines the selection of a product by The Madia. Great quality in food could be said to be a matter of balance between elements of flavours. Food which not only satisfies a basic need, but provides an enjoyable, exciting and "multi-sensory" experience, with an added cultural and social dimension - this, in short, is the ideal behind the creation of The Madia.
The products selected by The Madia are of limited production and as yet largely unknown to a wider public.
The Madia transforms the daily routine of eating into a special event.

What are the characteristics of a ‘typical’ product ? top

It must satisfy a number of basic criteria: quality ingredients, particular methods of preparation, specific geographical location and an appropriate scale of production. Almost always, the perceptible quality and taste of a product result from a particular set of parameters. It is no coincidence that such quality relates to the nutritional aspects of the diet employed in rearing a particular breed; the origin of the milk selected for a cheese; and the variety of vegetable or fruit used in making a preserve.

How can the typical products be defined? In a very intuitive way, we can affirm that these productions, known also as “local” or “traditional”, consist of food products different from the conventional ones of various places of origin, both from an intrinsic and a symbolic point of view. Furthermore, the typical products have the fundamental characteristic of being linked to their area of origin in a more or less strong way.

The factors concurring in distinguishing a local product from another one are several. First of all, the cultivation grounds and the local microclimate are vital; in fact they can sensibly affect the quality of the vegetable productions.

Also the production environment is important: for example, the characteristics of some Alpine and Apennine pastures give to milk and cheese a particular taste; both humidity and the winds contribute to the perfect seasoning of some cold cuts, as well as the vineyards’ exposition or slope have an influence on the grapes characteristics in a determinant way. In addition to all these factors, we need to add the traditional experiences and the manufacturing techniques. They create a unique and unrepeatable complex of tools, capacities, times and methods of production that can be considered necessary ingredients in order to transform a common product in a typical one.

As a consequence, the local products are the result of a long working-out that has tried to obtain the best result from what could be available in a particular place, by improving, fitting and evolving. Starting from the Fifties, Italy and other European countries started to worry about the typical products protection, in order to avoid the waste of this heritage of rural culture, handed over by farmers and breeders throughout the centuries. This protection was, and still is nowadays, justified both by the social reasons above mentioned and by economic interests. The sector regulation allowed to grant the consumers’ purchases and, at the same time, to stimulate the industries and the artisans in aiming at quality. Moreover, on a local level, in some fringe geographical areas, the typical productions play nowadays an irreplaceable role for the development of the local economy and the natural environment protection.
The Italian “typical and traditional” products Italy was one of the first nations to adopt legislation and, then, international agreements in order to protect the single products or some food categories, such as cheese, oil, wine and cold cuts. Afterwards, at the beginning of the Nineties, the European Union arranged a unique legislative complex in order to protect its typical products, both inside the EU and on an international level. It provides for the classification of the products according to three typicality levels:

P.D.O. - Protected Denomination of Origin (Reg. EEC 2081/92), - it identifies a product, whose characteristics are exclusively dependant on the geographical origin and whose productive phases take all place in the specified area;
P.G.I.– Protected Geographical Indication (Reg. EEC 2081/92) – it defines a product, whose characteristics can be connected with its geographical origin and that has at least one productive phase located in the specified area;
T.G.S. – Traditional Guaranteed Speciality (Reg. EEC 2082/92) – it distinguishes a product, whose raw materials, composition or recipe, production method or transformation, are of a traditional type.
In addition to these productions, a very high number of traditional foodstuffs exist in Italy. Even though they are not exclusively linked to the territory and they have no production regulations that bind their production in a specific geographical area, these products can be in any case safeguarded and made valuable. This great number of typical products will be hardly able to obtain the community quality labels, since it develops extremely limited volumes and it is spread in too restricted areas, so that it cannot justify a P.D.O. or P.G.I. award. In order to protect this remarkable food heritage not recognised on a EU level, Italy has created the List of Traditional Agri-food Products.

The way imitations are carried out top

Currently, in Italy the total number of the recognized typical productions is 568, divided into 324 RDO wines, 21 GRDO wines, 120 TGI wines, 80 PDO food products and 32 PGI products. Italy with the current 118 designations of typical food products ranks second in Europe after France; nevertheless, taking into account the recent Italian requests for the recognition of new designations of origin marks, it is possible to expect that Italy could reach shortly the first place.

In addition to the 118 denominations acknowledged by the EU, there are 3,500 traditional food products protected by the Italian regions. Italy’s wide wine and gastronomic culture is an undisputed boast, acknowledged on a worldwide level. Thanks to this culture Italian artisans and food industries could produce and let the whole world taste the made in Italy deliciousness.

Maybe nobody knows that Italy owns a basket of agri-food specialities whose vastness is unique in the world. The landscape of the food biodiversity (that is to say the typicality) is considered in every respect a priceless cultural heritage of knowledge and tastes to be preserved and made valuable.

Therefore, there is more and more the need to find effective means and measures to guarantee the affirmation and the protection of the typical Italian products, considering also the great number of forgeries and imitations of our agricultural and food products, carried out by using the image of the “made in Italy” product, whose demand is increasing.

• Wines: There are many cases of San Giovese, Barbera, Malvasia Bianca, Tocai Friulano, Refosco, Dolcetto, Pinot Bianco, Moscato Bianco, Pinot Grigio, Nebbiolo, Marsala, Chianti produced in some countries of South America and in California.

Besides the name of some Italian vines (as the Prosecco), some foreign producers also use Italian names, such as “Venezia”, “Etrusco”, etc. Other producers exploit Italian words clearly recalling our country, as Bel Vedere, Bianco, Rosso, Delicato, etc. This unfair competition is mainly present in the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany (for the wines sold with the name Prosecco) and in some South American countries, such as Brazil and Argentina.

• Pasta and rice: several imitations use Italian nouns (spaghetti, fettuccine, maccheroni, lasagne, etc.), trademarks with an Italian name (pasta de Fino, Pasta Festa, Primavera, Dolmio etc.), or packets in which the Italian tricolour stands out and ends by deceiving the consumer. This kind of “Italian style” forgery occurs more and more frequently in many EU countries, such as UK, Ireland, Switzerland, Australia, North and South America.

• Cheeses: besides the classical “parmesàn”, “ricotta”, “mozzarella” and “mascarpone” of local production, are marketed also cheeses as “provolone”, “fontina”, “gorgonzola”, “pecorino romano.” Nevertheless the latter, being PDO cheeses, are sold outside of some EU countries, where the repression of this type of imitations is less effective. If names officially registered at the local authorities cannot be used, they play on assonance, as in the case of the “cambonzola”, a cheese produced in Germany and sold in many countries of the world. The greatest imitators are the United States, some European countries and Australia.

• Tomato preserves: the label bears the wording San Marzano-imported peeled tomatoes in block capitals, while the word “style” is in small letters, that proves that they are not San Marzano tomatoes. In some cases an indication in Italian is used as well: Sugo di cucina, the Ortolano, etc. The greatest cases of imitation occurred in North America and in some European countries as Germany.

• Hams, salamis and sausages: the imitations occur mostly in the United States, Australia and Canada exploiting the lack of the original product. It must be reminded in fact that the authorities of these countries still forbid the import of ham, sausages and some types of dressed pork meats of European origin. Only in 1985 it was possible to get a special licence to export Parma and Carpegna ham to the United States, and subsequently from 1996 also the San Daniele ham. Local and Canadian producers have recently entered this niche with the registered trademark “Parma Ham”, “Daniele” and “San Daniele ham” and they have introduced other non-Italian products only with an Italian name as mortadella, soppressata, etc.

• Olive oil: there is an unfair competition in all the countries of the world which put up for sale “Italian style” products that bear typical Italian names on the label, as for instance “Italica”, “Gemma”, “Frà Diavolo Italian Hot Oil”, respectively produced in Turkey, Spain and California.

• Espresso coffee: for this product the imitations use typical Italian names as “Classico Espresso”, “Medaglia d’oro”, etc. on the label. In other circumstances the Italian words “Caffè espresso” are used. The main countries in which this new form of consumption has been being spread are the United States and Canada.

• Balsamic vinegar, polenta (cream of maize), pesto (sauce made of oil, basil, garlic, pine seeds and cheese characteristic of Genoese cooking) and other seasonings: also these products have recently entered the list of those most widely imitated, especially in North America and in Europe. Besides this kind of imitations, there are then frequent cases of forgery of Italian products through the complete forgery of the packing and of the content of the packets. The imitation usually concerns particularly well-known and expensive products and trademarks.

Who is damaged? top

The main victims of imitation and forgery are the Italian producers, that suffer from a reduction in the possibilities of access to the market and that have to face an unfair competition that, offering products of middle-low quality, is able to have low prices. Furthermore, such unfair competition does not end often only in the imitating country, but it also extends to those in which the non original products are exported.

Other unaware victims are the foreign consumers that buy products of mediocre quality and that are indirectly bereft of the pleasure to get to know and to appreciate the authentic productions.

The whole “Italian System” ends up by being damaged by a systematic distortion of the image of the country and of the quality of the exported products.

Moreover, also the commercial brokers suffer from damages similar to those of the Italian producers. A last remark concerns those promotion bodies that, after frequent imitations and forgeries, run the risk of seeing all the efforts made to affirm the typicalness and the quality of some products fruitless.

What it is possible to do top

This phenomenon urges to start up a coordinated action among Mipaf, Mae, Mincomes, ICE (Italian Trade Commission) and the interested categories, in order to elaborate a strategic plan aiming at guaranteeing a systematic monitoring of the main foreign markets by the ICE departments with immediate notification to the diplomatic authorities and the EU of the checked violations. At the same time it is indispensable to inform and to stimulate the protection consortia and the private companies to carry out regularly the registration of the trademark, offering to them - if possible - a public support to do the necessary procedures, which are often complex and expensive.

Then it is necessary to address the promotional activity towards a stronger information plan targeted at the specialized journalists, importers, buyers and foreign consumers, to underline the importance of buying exclusively the original products, distrusting the imitations, sometimes injurious to the health. The conclusion of specific agreements with the importers will allow, besides, to carry out joined forms of protection and promotion. Moreover, to strengthen the synergistic collaboration of all the involved subjects, it is desirable the creation of a special fund for the legal protection that, through agreements with qualified local departments carried out abroad by the ICE offices, allows a more effective protection of the typical productions. In any case, we remind that ICE already carries out regularly many of the above mentioned tasks and an in-depth research to update the world “map” of the food forgery and to elaborate a pilot scheme with the other subjects interested in this problem has been started up together with some departments located in the most important markets of the sector.

By Dott. Maurizio Forte ICE - Italian Trade Commission