The product, which was set to go on sale in UK supermarkets this September with a £2 price tag, contained “pasta in a creamy sauce with pancetta” and was hailed as “the perfect solution for a quick and satisfying meal at home” by Heinz Meals Director Alessandra de Dreuille.

Heinz’s announcement was met with horror by Italian cooks on Thursday.

Italian chef and TV personality Gianfranco Vissani said that Heinz “should be ashamed of themselves,” accusing them of “destroying Italian culture and our cuisine”.

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

Rome’s Glass Hostaria chef Cristina Bowerman called it “a horrendous idea” and “a bastardisation of our cuisine”.

Speaking to The Times, the chef of Rome’s Michelin-starred Pipero restaurant, Alessandro Pipero, compared the new canned product to “cat food”, whereas Ciara Tassoni, who manages Italian restaurant Bottega Prelibato in east London, called it “a disgrace” which “couldn’t be any further from authentic carbonara”.

Originally from the central Lazio region, pasta carbonara (or pasta alla carbonara in Italian) is traditionally made with guanciale (cured pork jowl), pecorino cheese and eggs.

READ ALSO: What are the unbreakable rules for making real pasta carbonara?

But the classic dish has been at the centre of numerous culinary controversies in recent years after international cooks launched unorthodox versions of the original recipe.

Italian cooks and social media users expressed outrage in February 2023 after the New York Times featured a ‘tomato carbonara’ recipe replacing pork cheek and pecorino with bacon and parmesan and adding tomato sauce to the eggs.

In February 2020, British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s creative take on the original carbonara sparked uproar on Italian social media platforms, with one user calling it “a joke”.