Italy: First food consumption growth in years
The sector saw an increase of 1.4 per cent in the first two months of 2015 compared to last year.
Positive signals are also coming from abroad, where there is a real boom for Italian food, with an growth of 6.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2015, after a record €34.3 billion turnover in 2014.
This result was achieved despite the unfavorable economic situation in some countries like Russia where the embargo introduced by President Vladimir Putin has more than halved exports of agricultural and food products (-53.8 per cent) in the first two months of 2015, after shipments had already dropped by about €100 million in 2014.
Around two thirds of turnover abroad comes from the export of food products to EU countries, although there has also been a strong performance in the Americas and emerging markets such as Asia. The most exported Italian product is wine, but there are also relevant overseas shipments of fruit and vegetables, pasta and olive oil.
However, Coldiretti warns of low cost imitations of "Italian sounding food" but with no links to Italy, worth an estimated €60 billion. In fact, nearly two out of three types of Italian food are not authenthic, including vines, tomatoes, mortadella and cheeses.
Source: esmmagazine.com
