The protection of food biodiversity to protect the Made in Italy brand. A model that could also be adopted in India, while in South America the Chilean black label, which effectively discourages the purchase of products such as Parmesan, Gorgonzola, ham, and even gnocchi, could become a trendsetter - continues Coldiretti - and could be looked at by Brazil and Peru. Australia could soon equip itself with a star system (Health star rating) that, like the nutriscore, is based on the presence of certain substances in 100 grams of product. Alarmist labels, based on the presence of certain substances calculated on 100 grams of product and not on the actual quantities used, favour artificial products of which in some cases even the recipe is not known and end up excluding paradoxically healthy and natural foods" said the president of Coldiretti Ettore Prandini, stressing that this is "a serious damage to the Italian agri-food system just at a time when it could be the driving force of a strategic internationalization plan to increase the presence of Made in Italy on foreign markets".
Nutrition, Coldiretti: Italy is the European leader for zero-kilometer sales
The initiative of Coldiretti on the occasion of the pre-Summit on the UN food system has made known the Italian agri-food system and the role of farmers in preserving an integrated ecosystem for sustainable growth that has led Italy to be a world leader in the protection of biodiversity, in food safety and in quality productions. This heritage is at the basis of the historical record marked by the export of Made in Italy agri-food, which recorded a jump of 8.9% in 2021 after being the only sector growing even in the previous year with a value of 46.1 billion, driven by the products of the Mediterranean Diet, according to the Coldiretti analysis on Istat data relating to foreign trade in the first four months of the year. A wealth of the country that is now put at risk by the spread around the world of misleading, discriminatory and incomplete information systems that deceive consumers by effectively inducing them to prefer lower quality products and excluding from their table products such as extra virgin olive oil, a symbol of the Mediterranean Diet, not surprisingly included in the list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity by UNESCO and elected the best diet in the world in 2020 ahead of the dash and the flexitarian, based on the best diets ranking drawn up by the American media U.S. News & World's Report's. Models pushed by multinationals that seek - Coldiretti denounces - to influence consumers rather than inform them, with the aim of replacing natural foods present for hundreds of years in the diet with products made with synthetic ingredients and at low cost passing them off as healthier, from meat to drinks. An incalculable damage to the health of citizens and to the wealth, variety, uniqueness of the Italian agricultural and food model.