Opening of a desk for the labelling of products

On the 2nd of March the new desk for the labelling of agricultural products was presented: the project was implemented by Polo Agire, a consortium of Abruzzese small and large companies in the agricultural sector, toghether with the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell’Abruzzo e del Molise “G. Caporale” (IZSAM) and Confimi Impresa Abruzzo, a confederation representing in the region around 250 companies and around 5.000 operators. The press conference was held at the IZSAM' headquarters and the Scientific Director Giovanni Savini, the responsible for the project at IZSAM Giacomo Migliorati, the President and the CEO of Polo Agire, William Di Carlo and Donato De Falcis, as well as Mauro Di Cola, representative of Confimi Impresa Abruzzo, participated in the event.

The desk for the labelling of products has the objective to help the companies in fulfilling their obligations concerning the new European Regulation, which requires to provide consumers with specific information both for prepacked food and not prepacked food sold at bars or restaurants from December 2014. Moreover, the text makes the nutritional labelling with information on the energy value and some nutrients as fat, saturated fatty acid, carbohydrate, protein, sugars and salt mandatory for prepacked food before December 2016. The new Regulation merges together and harmonizes the legislations on labelling, the presentation and publicity of the foodstuff, it strengthen the protection of consumers and sets the same rules for all the European Union countries.

Thanks to the action of Polo Agire, who covers half of the expenses, the project has the advantage of offering a complex labelling service today available on the Market at half of the costs and with a lot of contents for all the companies who are associated to the Polo. It is the first service of this kind in Abruzzo, which enables companies as for now to obtain a complete and available label to be fixed on the product and in compliance with the new EU legislation.

The President of Polo Agire, William Di Carlo, declared: "It is an interesting initiative because the desk offers a true 360-degree look on food safety and labelling, going from the product to the packaging. It is also important to consider the opportunity to reduce the costs of a service that the Market forces to buy at a higher price. Polo Agire carries on with the services for the Abruzzese agricultural companies, trying to satisfy the needs of the small and large enterprises with an eye for the costs".

"We designed this service firstly for companies - said Mauro Di Cola of Confimi Impresa Abruzzo - to give a concrete answer to the questions they ask us every day. The project also shows how important the synergy between the world of SMEs and the world of research is and how fundamental it is, in a reality like Polo Agire, to catalyse and concretely implement the development and innovation in Abruzzo."

"Our task - remarked Giacomo Migliorati of IZSAM - is to provide businesses with a local scientific and technical support aimed at obtaining representative values of the nutritional composition of their products, thus allowing an adjustment to the provisions dictated by new EU Regulation, to guarantee greater protection of both the producer and the consumer ".