Italy’s agriculture minister, Francesco Lollobrigida, has called for an immediate investigation after coming across what he claimed were jars of “Italian-sounding” pasta sauce on the shelves of the European parliament’s supermarket.
Lollobrigida, of Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, was particularly vexed by a carbonara sauce made with “Italiaanse pancetta” – the classic Roman pasta dish is made with a different cured meat, guanciale – and a tomato sauce containing “oignons de Calabria”, or onions from Calabria.
“Ignoring the pancetta in carbonara … all these products represent the worst of ‘Italian sounding’,” he wrote on Facebook about his discovery. “It is unacceptable to see them on the shelves of the European parliament supermarket. I have asked for an immediate investigation.”
Italy has long tried to fight against the huge global market in “Italian-sounding” products – that is, food items that give the impression they are made in Italy when they are not.
The own-label sauces Lollobrigida referred to are sold by the Belgian supermarket chain Delhaize and have an Italian flag on their packaging.
Under EU regulations, a food product could be deemed to be misleading consumers if its labelling distorts its actual country of origin.
Reports in Brussels said the sauces were not claimed to be made in Italy and did include Italian ingredients. The Guardian has asked Delhaize to comment.
The episode comes as Italy eagerly awaits the outcome of its application for Italian cuisine to be included in Unesco’s intangible cultural heritage list. A decision is expected in early December.
Italy’s biggest agribusiness association, Coldiretti, said the “scandal of fake Italian products” cost the country €120bn (£106bn) a year.
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“Paradoxically, the biggest counterfeiters of Italian excellence are industrialised countries,” Coldiretti said. “Due to the so-called ‘Italian sounding’ phenomenon, more than two out of three Italian agrifood products worldwide are fake, with no production or employment link to our country.” It claimed the biggest offender was the US.
The association also regularly battles against the use of mafia terms to sell a variety of food and drink products around the world, from Cosa Nostra whisky to Chilli Mafia hot sauces.
