'Italian sounding' products are worth €54 billion, or more than half of the turnover of Italy’s entire food industry (€132 billion), of which €24 billion is attributed to North and Central America.
This figure is from a survey conducted by Assocamerestero, the association that brings together 78 Italian Chambers of Commerce Abroad (CCIE), based on Istat data.
The phenomenon refers to the marketing of food and beverages produced worldwide but labelled with Italian names and misleading Italian words, images and trademarks.
The analysis considered several parameters: the sales channel, the type of product, the characteristics of the packaging, and even the price differences between the imitation product and the authentic one from Italy (amounting to an average of 30%).
The survey included dairy products, pasta, sauces, meat products, vinegar, oil, oil-based and vinegar products, bakery products and wine.
Dairy products are the most affected, partly because of the difficulty of deciding which product is the imposter. The price difference for some products in Chicago ranged from -13% on fontina cheese, -38% on Parmesan, -50% for mascarpone and -48% for Asiago cheese.
In some retail chains in Los Angeles, there were peaks in the price difference of -75% for provolone cheese, -68% for Gorgonzola cheese, and up to -80% on fontina and pecorino cheese.
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
