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.
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