The European Commission has recently published the report on the controls carried out on PDO, PGI and TSG products during 2012-2014 in eight member countries (Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia, the Slovak Republic, and the United Kingdom). Indigestible opacity.
Regulation (EC) No. 1151/2012, it will be recalled, has given member states primary responsibility for official public controls, throughout the supply chains, “from the farm to the fork,” of agri-food products protected as PDOs, PGIs and TSGs. National administrations should plan such controls, with a view to fraud prevention, on a par with those on food safety. So at least it is prescribed by the regulation, ignored by national governments, accepted by the Commission.
The most serious deficiencies are found precisely at the critical stage par excellence, that of final distribution to European consumers who are therefore victims of frequent fraud. Most member states conduct checks before products are placed on the market, but do not investigate portioning, repackaging and labeling.
We lose sight of the fundamentals of traceability, starting with primary agricultural production. To the point that only two member states have planned to extend checks to mass balances, i.e., comparing what is purchased (e.g., x ton. of Parmesan cheese) with what is sold (e.g., 99x ton. of Parmesan).
Italy is the only country to have effective criteria for carrying out controls, and special “databases” with records and outcomes of controls carried out. And the values, and the numbers of quality Italian production well explain that commitment. But the system does not hold, it is given to suspect, perhaps partly because of the unacceptable connivance between PDO counterfeiters and the national authorities that should instead be thwarting such criminal phenomena.
Dario Dongo
