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FOOD AND DRINK

Parmigiano cheesemakers roll out edible microchip to fight fakes

The revered and centuries-old Parmigiano Reggiano now comes with crime-fighting technology. But don't worry, you won't get a mouthful of chips with your cheese.

Published: 18 August 2023 15:31 CEST
Parmigiano cheesemakers roll out edible microchip to fight fakes
A worker cuts a wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese at the Casearia Castelli. (Photo by Marco BERTORELLO / AFP)

Italian cheesemakers have installed a microchip the size of a grain of salt into their world-famous Parmigiano Reggiano cheese to fight food fraudsters.

In a century of trying to battle off cheaper imitations, the Consortium for Parmigiano Reggiano cheese has stepped up its efforts with this latest innovation.

As a product that costs nearly 20 euros per kilogram on average in Italy (depending on age), replicating a cheaper version is lucrative.

The PRC estimated that the earnings from counterfeit cheese netted about around 1.84 billion euros last year.

READ ALSO: What are the rules on bringing cheeses and meats to the US from Italy?

In a bid to stop the cheese copycats, the Consortium in March launched the digital label to “make Parmigiano Reggiano PDO even more traceable and secure”.

PDO refers to the Protected Designation of Origin status (in Italian, DOP) and is awarded to foods produced in a certain geographical area with recognised skills.

In the case of Parmigiano Reggiano, it’s only granted to a limited number of cheese producers.

This protected status is exactly what makes Parmigiano Reggiano authentic and makes any cheese not following the Consortium’s strict guidelines a knock-off.

READ ALSO: Ask an expert: ‘What’s the difference between Italy’s Parmigiano Reggiano and parmesan cheese?’

Parmigiano Reggiano is made in an area that includes three cities – Parma, Reggio Emilia, and Modena.

The first two cities gave the cheese its name, where most of the cheese production takes place across around 350 dairy farms.

Over the past three months, the cheese producers have experimented with the microchip on roughly 120,000 wheels, each weighing approximately 40kg.

Now, talks are underway to extend the technology to the entire production.

READ ALSO: Italian man crushed to death by falling cheese wheels

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal on Thursday,  Alberto Pecorari, from the PRC, said, “We keep fighting with new methods. We won’t give up.”

Social media users have expressed concern about potentially eating a microchip, which is however food-safe and unlikely to be ingested as it’s inserted into the hard rind.

Employing a micro piece of technology is the newest attempt to verify the cheese’s origin. The previous method of stamping a unique and sequential alphanumeric code showing the month and year of production hasn’t thwarted fraudsters.

“Since the Consortium was established in 1934, we have been at the forefront in promoting and defending its authenticity and communicating worldwide the differences with similar products that do not meet the strict PDO requirements,” Nicola Bertinelli, president of the Consortium told Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

“We are proud to be the first Protection Consortium to introduce these labels, digital and secure, to guarantee an even more protected and traced product.”

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OPINION

Doggy bags and sharing plates: Why Italy’s last food-related taboos are dying out

Italy is famous for its strong culinary traditions and unwritten rules around eating, but as Italians embrace doggy bags and informal dining, Silvia Marchetti argues that the last food-related taboos have been broken.

Published: 25 April 2024 09:40 CEST
Updated: 28 April 2024 08:31 CEST
Doggy bags and sharing plates: Why Italy's last food-related taboos are dying out

Italians are deadly serious when it comes to eating or, as they say, “mettere le gambe sotto il tavolo”, meaning ‘putting your feet under the table’.

Three meals per day remain sacrosanct at home, but at restaurants the eating etiquette is changing, particularly in big cities where globalisation has an effect.

I recently discovered, much to my surprise, that Italians are embracing doggy bags. When I was a kid, many many years ago, to us Italians it always seemed like something only foreigners could do, especially Americans.

We would never have asked a waiter to give us a paper bag to bring away the food for the next day, it just would never have popped up in our minds: you eat what you are served and if you no longer wanted what you’d paid for, well too bad, you’ll leave it on the plate. It would’ve been embarrassing to walk away with a doggy bag.

So I was shocked when recently at a restaurant in Rome I saw Italians taking away bags of leftover lunch food, including cold pizza slices and meatballs. It almost knocked me off my chair.

READ ALSO: Are doggy bags still taboo in Italy’s restaurants?

When the waitress came to our table to bring the cheque, and saw that we hadn’t finished our fried  fish and spaghetti alle vongole, she asked if we wanted a doggy bag. My jaw dropped. It was a first for me.

Yet what really shocked me was that the restaurant was not in the city centre, but in the countryside where traditions tend to survive, or at the very least, take longer to die.

It struck me how it’s no longer foreigners asking for doggy bags, but even Italians have overcome the stigma of this former faux pas.

The sad truth is that it’s not just because of globalisation and the economic crisis following the pandemic. There’s been a fall in the cultural level of many Italians, so asking for a doggy bag is also a way to avoid having to cook for the evening or for the day after, rather than to save money.

Sadly, this trend is not an exception, nor a one-off, and in Italy it’s not driven by concerns over food waste (we’re really not that ‘green’) or the cost of living.

Italian restaurants are simply becoming more generically European and international, adapting to global habits and the requests of foreign clientele.

In Rome’s touristy spots, restaurants showcase photos of dishes outside the restaurant to lure customers, or display real plates of gluey carbonara. This is something I had never seen in my childhood.

I have noticed that other restaurant eating taboos and etiquette rules have fallen away, too.

A few (well-off) friends of mine bring their own bottles of wine along when they eat out so that they don’t have to pay for these at the restaurant. I find this very inappropriate, but it usually happens when the restaurant owner and customers are friends or know each other.

READ ALSO: Want to eat well in Italy? Here’s why you should ditch the cities

Trends in restaurant etiquette are changing. There are eateries that serve pizza at lunch, which used to be something you could only order for dinner unless you’re in Naples.

The standard three courses which we normally have are also being messed up: appetisers, first, second and side dishes are eaten in a disorderly way – something which would make my granny turn in her grave.

I have seen Italian families first order a T-bone steak and then pasta or a slice of pizza, while many couples share plates. The man orders one type of spaghetti dish, the woman orders another kind of spaghetti and half-way through the meal they switch dishes. This was something very unusual in the past. Before in restaurant there were boundaries in eating habits and in the eating culture, which are now blurring.

My parents taught me it is rude to poke your fork into someone else’s plate to curl up some spaghetti for yourself. My dad always looked sideways at anyone who did that: not only is it extremely improper, he thinks, but it is also very unhygienic.

There are no more rules left in Italian restaurants nowadays, and all taboos have been broken.

To adapt to foreign clients many restaurants tend to stay open the whole day, especially in very touristy areas, and the untouchable hours of lunch and dinner now overlap. Some taverns even serve breakfast.

READ ALSO: Why do Italians get so angry if you mess with classic recipes?

In the north, I’ve noticed that bread and extra-virgin olive oil are often missing from the table and you have to ask for them, which is something very atypical of Italian standards.

To find the traditional Italian eating code in restaurants where there are rules that will never die, one must go deep into unknown spots, and travel to remote villages no one has ever heard of. It’s always harder to find such authentic, untouched places.

I really hate to say this, but wherever there is mass tourism local traditions tend to die, particularly food-related ones.

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