PDO Cheese Producers Say Nutri-Score Ignores Italian Culinary Tradition

Afidop, an Italian cheese professional­duc­ers’ asso­ci­a­tion includ­ing many Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) cheeses, has warned that vast­unfold adop­tion of Nutri-Score might result in much less cheese con­sump­tion.

“The label is placing cheeses that are the sym­bol of Made in Italy in danger,” Afidop mentioned in a press launch. ​“It’s now pos­si­ble that sooner or later we may have a Caprese with­out the Campania’s buf­falo moz­zarella or spaghetti in tomato sauce with­out the Parmigiano Reggiano cheese or perhaps a risotto with radic­chio and Gorgonzola with no Gorgonzola in it.”

Afidop lamented how the low scores that Nutri-Rating offers to cheeses might drive professional­duc­ers out of the mar­ket.

The asso­ci­a­tion cited the latest Waste Watcher International sur­vey, which they mentioned con­firmed that decrease Nutri-Rating rat­ings trigger con­sumers to keep away from low-scor­ing meals.

See Additionally:European Parliament Recommends Adoption of Europe-Wide Food Labels

The European Fee is cur­rently eval­u­at­ing the French-born front-of-pack label­ing (FOPL) sys­tem for manda­tory adop­tion throughout the European Union.

Nutri-Rating is a traf­fic-light-style label that provides pack­aged meals objects one in all 5 let­ter-color scores, from the well being­i­est ​“Inexperienced A” right down to the ​“Pink E.” The rat­ings are assigned by an algo­rithm primarily based on the con­tent of salt, fats, sugar and calo­ries per 100-gram or mil­li­liter sam­ple.

The labels are supposed to enable the con­sumer to com­pare dif­fer­ent meals objects in the identical cat­e­gory at a look.

The excessive stage of fat in most cheeses trans­lates into decrease scores, which have already been defined as ​“puni­tive” by the Common Confederation of Roquefort, in France.

In the meantime, iconic Italian cheeses, includ­ing Parmigiano Reggiano PDO, Pecorino Romano PDO or Gorgonzola PDO, are all rated with an ​“Orange D” by the Nutri-Rating algo­rithm.

“We are saying no to Nutri-Rating and people sorts of labels primarily based on mounted quantities,” mentioned Antonio Auricchio, Afidop pres­i­dent. ​“They’re com­pletely indifferent from the precise con­sump­tion in a each day food regimen.”

“They’re deceiv­ing instruments which below­worth the PDO prod­ucts’ rep­u­ta­tion and dis­cour­age the con­sump­tion of our recipes by triv­i­al­iz­ing the nutri­tional worth of our prod­ucts,” he added.

To this finish, Afidop introduced that it’s be part of­ing forces with the Consortia for the Safety of PDOs to cre­ate the ​“Say No to Nutri-Rating” social internet­work cam­paign and give attention to 10 tra­di­tional Italian recipes during which cheese performs a dis­tinc­tive function. With the adop­tion of Nutri-Rating, professional­duc­ers mentioned they fear a few of these dishes might dis­ap­pear.

To rein­drive its cam­paign, Afidop requested Italian physi­cian Luca Piretta, a fuel­troen­terol­o­gist and nutri­tion­ist, for his opin­ion on Nutri-Rating.

“Weight loss plan is a each day behav­ior,” Piretta mentioned. ​“It isn’t made solely of 1 kind of meals. Not by green-coded meals that makes you suppose you possibly can eat that with no lim­its, nor by red-coded meals that makes that meals seem as for­bid­den. It’s edu­ca­tion and nutri­tional con­scious­ness that make the dif­fer­ence.”

Afidop additionally cited Davide Oldani, a Michelin-star chef, who mentioned, ​“behind each PDO cheese, there may be an enogas­tro­nomic her­itage made from distinctive tra­di­tions, peo­ple, ter­ri­to­ries and cli­mates.”

“By penal­iz­ing the cer­ti­fied cheeses, Nutri-Rating endan­gers recipes the place the pres­ence of that ingre­di­ent is a enjoyable­da­males­tal char­ac­ter­is­tic, each at residence and on the restau­rant,” he added.

Afidop additionally ref­er­enced offi­cial knowledge about Italy’s cer­ti­fied meals mar­ket worth, stat­ing that Nutri-Rating would put a €4.2‑billion sec­tor with 55 cer­ti­fied sorts of cheese and 26,000 work­ers in danger.

In line with the asso­ci­a­tion, meals which can be sym­bols of the Mediterranean diet might dis­ap­pear, and Afidop accuses Nutri-Rating of ignor­ing its prin­ci­ples.

Nevertheless, Serge Hercberg, Nutri-Rating’s cre­ator, pre­vi­ously told Olive Oil Times how the Mediterranean food regimen pri­mar­ily professional­motes con­sump­tion of fruits, veg­eta­bles and complete grains, solely rec­om­mend­ing lim­ited con­sump­tion of dairy prod­ucts and meat.

“It favors olive oil amongst added fat however doesn’t rec­om­mend its con­sump­tion advert libi­tum,” he mentioned. ​“The Mediterranean food regimen doesn’t, there­fore, below any cir­cum­stances, because the Italian argu­ments sug­gest, professional­mote cheeses and processed meats, whether or not Italian or not.”

Unsurprisingly, Italian cheese professional­duc­ers have a dif­fer­ent opin­ion.

“We’re for cor­rect and com­plete infor­ma­tion for the con­sumer, geared toward a bal­anced and nutritious diet,” Auricchio con­cluded. ​“That’s the reason we be part of all these in Italy and thru­out Europe who consider Nutri-Rating is a plat­type that’s deceiv­ing the con­sumer, and we encour­age pub­lic insti­tu­tions to work in opposition to the enact­ment of this professional­posal.”