Listen to the audio version of the article
Given that in the global fight against Parmesan and Gambozola, i.e. fake PDO and PGI products, the real inspectors of the protection consortia have their weapons blunt, let’s try artificial intelligence. This is what the Consortium of Mozzarella di Bufala Campana Dop must have thought with a project conceived by the Consortium itself and implemented by the Farzati company and which was presented in Rome in a meeting at the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty.
The system called “Nina” is based on a platform which, thanks to artificial intelligence, verifies on the web with “scraping” techniques all the references it encounters on Mozzarella di Bufala Campana Dop. She analyzes them trying to identify the presence of imitations, counterfeits, evocations and abuses. In particular, “Nina” checks the Mozzarella Dop wrappings, learning to distinguish the authentic ones from the fake ones.
Furthermore, with a continuous learning model the system improves over time the ability to identify the authenticity and conformity criteria of the wrapping, offering an additional level of protection. In essence, it is a sort of gigantic digital “sieve” which, applied to the web and e-commerce sites, is able to identify and report fake references and thus allow the inspectors of the consortium and – in the future – also the other bodies responsible for control, to carry out targeted interventions.
For once it comes from the South and its main PDO product, an upgrade in terms of innovation and the fight against agro-piracy. «This innovation allows us a leap in quality in the surveillance activity on DOP Campania buffalo mozzarella – commented the director of the Protection Consortium, Pie Maria Saccani – and demonstrates that, if used well, the revolution of artificial intelligence can be of great help to the protection of Made in Italy. The application of AI will make it possible for the Consortium to exponentially implement its market surveillance activity but also to provide a monitoring service for the benefit of its members. Thus for the first time excellent agrifood allies itself with technological innovation, keeping pace with the challenges of the global world.”
In 2023 alone, the Consortium for the protection of Mozzarella di Bufala Campana Dop carried out 5 thousand checks, which are added to those of the other designated bodies (ASL, Carabinieri, Icqrf) for a total of around 15 thousand checks per year, which make Bufala Dop one of the most protected products in Europe.