What does Italian sounding means?

The Italians sounding is the marketing of food and beverage produced worldwide, but labelled with Italian names and misleading Italian words and pictures.

This phenomenon was born in XIX century, when Italians emigrants began to produce typical Italian food with local ingredients, because of the impossibility to import raw materials from Italy, and then they labelled that products with the original names to show proud the Italian flag.

Today, this romantic origin is became a big economic damage for the authentic made in Italy: it’s enough to think what the multinational corporation are doing producing the fake Gorgonzola named Bombonzola or the Parmesào.

Today, Italian sounding products is a consequence of the popularity of Italian cuisine worldwide. Millions of consumers want to be closer to Italian cuisine culture, symbol of wellness and food gourmet, but the majority of Italian companies are family companies, so very small, and they haven’t the know-how and enough economic resources to invest in international markets. In this scenario, it was a piece of cake for international producers jump this business opportunity that value 164 million euro every day!

The Italian sounding fraud is growing every year in Italy too: producers are importing low cost raw materials to use as ingredients, so we can see Chinese tomatoes sold as Italian tomatoes (that’s just an example). It’s clear that the damage to the Made in Italy brand is enormous: the low quality of Italian sounding products are affecting the prestige of authentic high quality Italian food and beverage.

The most copied Italian products and how recognize them

According to the last market insights, the most copied Italian product is Parmigiano Reggiano, followed by Prosciutto di Parma and San Daniele, but also, Grana Padano cheese, Buffalo Mozzarella, Asiago and Gorgonzola.

To recognize real Italian products you have to read PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) stamps on the labels and 100% Italian ingredients declared on the packaging. Also, pay attention to mozzarella, the tomato sauce and the ham: if you read “traditional ham” or “country ham”, usually they aren’t real Italian products!