“What is happening in Ukraine is also affecting our country, like an earthquake that sees food industries at the epicenter,” says Ivano Vacondio, president of Federalimentare (the association of Italian food industries), in relation to the already high costs of energy and raw materials that are constantly rising. These costs risk having really bad consequences on the entire Italian f&b sector.
The association of Italian farmers, Coldiretti (in the photo above, a public protest of the association against the war in Ukraine), also speaks of the negative effects for Italian food exports: “The effects of the Ukrainian conflict risk to completely cancel Made in Italy f&b to the markets of Moscow and Kyiv, further worsening the effects of the embargo decided by Putin in 2014, and since then always extended, as a response to the sanctions decided by the European Union, the US and other countries for the annexation of Crimea. The blockade has already cost Italian food exports 1.5 billion in the last 7 and a half years”.
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The embargo decree still in force affects in fact the exports of a long list of Italian food products. In Russia is still forbidden the entry of fruit and vegetables, cheese, meat, and cold cuts, but also fish, from the EU, USA, Canada, Norway, and Australia. “The f&b sector is, until now, the only one directly affected by the embargo that has led to the complete elimination of exports to Russia of Italian products on the black list. They range from Parmigiano Reggiano PDO to Grana Padano PDO, from Prosciutto di Parma PDO to Prosciutto di San Daniele PDO,” says Coldiretti.
The association also underlines how the direct damage of lacked exports to Russia is added “the diffusion on the Russian market of imitations, which have nothing to do with Italian food, made in Russia or in countries not affected by the embargo. Especially salami and cheese”.