Pressed in the grip of declining exports and zero consumption in restaurants – closed due to the Covid-19 health pandemic – Italian agri-food industry did not stop its production even during the lockdown.
ITALIAN PRODUCTION DESPITE THE PANDEMIC: FOOD…
Under the supervision of the ICQRF, the Central Inspectorate for Quality Protection and Fraud Prevention of Italy’s Ministry for Agriculture, high-quality F&B supply chains have continued their production in the last three months. In fact, they produced 1.86 million branded hams; 3.8 million ham trays; 1.35 million branded cheese wheels and 6.27 million kg of grated cheese; over a million litres of olive oil; almost 15 million litres of balsamic vinegar of Modena; 500 thousand kg of rice, and 1.3 million kg of fruit and vegetables.
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… AND WINE
The wine sector also continued to produce high-end products to an important extent: in the period March-April, 2.12 million hectolitres of wine were certified, the equivalent of about 283 million bottles. Prosecco (out of three denominations) was the most certified wine: 580 thousand hectolitres, equal to almost 77 million bottles. The organic production chain did not stop either. In fact it saw the entry of 998 new operators in the period for a total area of 26,960 hectares.
AN INTEGRATED PROMOTION PLAN FOR EXPORTS
“We have just launched a 150-million-euros Integrated Promotion Plan to relaunch the consumption of our high-quality food products abroad, the pride of Made in Italy, as soon as the anti-Covid-19 measures will allow it – says the Italian Undersecretary for Agricultural Policies, Giuseppe L’Abbate -. In the meantime, I can only thank the praiseworthy work done by the ICQRF which, despite the dramatic epidemic crisis, has carried out over 21,000 anti-fraud controls on the agri-food chain, guaranteeing Italian consumers and national products. More than a third of the controls were carried out in the Northern regions, in order to guarantee the quality standards of the two largest Geographical Indications in the world in terms of quantity: Grana Padano PDO (5.2 million wheels) and Prosecco (over 600 million bottles”.