The British authorities - in collaboration with the Department for environment food and rural affairs, the Inspectorate quality control and repression fraud and the Consortium Prosciutto San Daniele - have seized products that falsely reported the name ‘Prosciutto San Daniele’ . «It is essential to have adequate instruments for the protection of DOP and IGP assets, to safeguard consumer and honest producers . The protection of Made in Italy is a top priority», told the Minister for Agriculture, Nunzia De Girolamo, commenting on the procedure followed by the Consortium to report an online sale, on a site by an English company , of a product that abused the name ‘San Daniele’ .
According to the Italian Union of farmers (CIA), the seizure by the British authorities is a doubly good news: on one side, another attempt to imitate one of our outstanding products has been blocked, on the other hand it demonstrates the effectiveness of the new instruments for the protection of certifications introduced by the EU. With a radical action to fight fake Made in Italy , food export - which today amounts to almost € 34 billion - it may even triple, underlines the CIA .
The food industry is not only one of the most affected by counterfeit, with a turnover of fake products close to 1 billion €, but also suffers the unfair competition of Italian sounding that on global markets generates an illegal business of 60 billion euro per year. For the producers and the entire food chain , that every day work on excellence, it is an unacceptable economic and image damage, especially since the most fake products are very often the DOP, IGP and the organic products, just those that should offer an absolute guarantee of food security.