News

Italy on April 15 gave final approval to a food and agriculture protection bill that creates new crimes, tightens penalties tied to company revenue and expands controls across the supply chain..

The legislation also strengthening administrative sanctions and coordination among inspectors.  It creates a new offense of food fraud.. The law also creates a separate offense for the trade of foods with false signs, a category designed to catch misleading labels.

The bill adds specific aggravating circumstances that warrant increased penalties. Among them is “agropiracy,” a term used for organized and systematic illegal activity in the food sector. Penalties are linked to company turnover.

The law also increases penalties for counterfeiting PGI and PDO designations. It also strengthens traceability requirements, with tighter rules on how products are identified and monitored

To improve enforcement, the law creates a coordination body for inspections.

More details are in this media report.

This article (open access) is an early publication of a paper that has been through peer review but not yet through journal typographical editing.

During 2019-2021, a total of 78 samples of fish products from national and international brands were.collected from supermarkets, fishmongers, and other local retail stores in the Apulia region (Southern Italy).  They were tested using PCR and DNA barcoding.

The authors report that 5 of the 78 samples were fraudulently labelled.

They also discuss the role of DNA barcoding, challenges with processed fish products, and the pros and cons of different public databases (BOLD and BLAST).

Photo by Marko Markovic on Unsplash

Italy has announced plans to bring in mandatory origin labelling for tomato-based products, bypassing EU procedures and sparking fears for the unity of Europe's single market.

The move comes just weeks after Italian authorities unveiled a decree implement a two-year trial for mandatory origin labelling for pasta and rice , requiring manufacturers to indicate the country of origin of the grains used to manufacture processed rice and pasta items on packaging.

Italy also has origin labelling for dairy products.

The move is intended to counter growing competition coming from imports of Chinese tomato puree which, according to Coldiretti, the association that represents the Italian agricultural sector, increased by 43% in 2016.

Read full article.