Italy: 8 000 tons of illegal food items seized in one year

The Nucleo Antisofisticazione e Sanità (Carabinieri NAS), an Italian national body engaged in the supervision of the food sector for compliance with the rules aimed at protecting the health of citizens, has announced that over 8 000 tons of irregular food have been seized in the last year, for a total value of 34 million euros.    

The seizures affected fish, dairy products, meat, baked goods and cereals, soft drinks, and beverages. The reasons behind the confiscations were: unknown origin, poor hygienic-sanitary conditions, storage in unsuitable environments, presence of evident signs of alteration or with exceeded expiry dates.    

Overall, 27 000 inspections were carried out on the entire agri-food chain (production, distribution, and catering), detecting irregularities in over 10 000 inspected structures (37%).    

During the checks, 16 118 violations of national and EU regulations governing food hygiene and safety were ascertained. In total, 798 structures (warehouses, restaurants, bakeries, various food production and sale activities, etc.) were closed due to serious hygienic irregularities and lack of authorizations.    

Recently, Carabinieri NAS has carried out a control campaign aimed at combating the illicit trade of imported ethnic products distributed over large areas of the Italian territory. In this specific sector, Carabinieri NAS carried out around 700 inspections, which resulted in the detection of irregularities in 50% of the cases. Overall, 2 000 tons of food products deemed unfit for consumption were seized, for a commercial value of approximately 4 million euros.    

 

Source:    

Carabinieri