Where our food comes from

You cannot always believe what is written on the can. Any British shopper browsing Asda’s supermarket shelves for a touch of the Mediterranean culinary lifestyle might have been forgiven for thinking that the labels on the cans of an own-brand tomato puree meant what they said. After all, they read: “Produced in Italy”.

But that was not to be quite the whole story, thanks to the often opaque world of EU consumer law. When police in Angri, southern Italy, raided Asda’s supplier, they found the tomato puree had been imported from China.

Read more….

http://irpi.eu/pulp-fiction-asdas-made-in-italy-tomato-puree-hails-from-china/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/27/asda-italy-tomato-puree-china

The Quality of Our Food

We are lucky enough to be able to buy olive directly from the producers, and this article below on the Investigative Reporting Project Italy site shows that in the face of increasing demand for olive oil in China and the US, there is an increasing tendency for unscrupulous producers to provide sub-standard or even faked oil. We have been struck by how cheaply some olive oil is sold here in France, sometimes half the price of what we pay when buying straight from the producers – this article may point to the reasons for this…

http://irpi.eu/valpesana-procura-di-siena-trova-il-deodorato/