In Italy almost one food alarm was triggered a day with as many as 297 notifications sent to the European Union during 2020: only 19% (56), however, concerned products of national origin, 160 came from other states of the European Union ( 54%) and 81 from non-EU countries (27%). This is what emerges from the Coldiretti dossier on the “black list of the most dangerous foods” presented at the international forum for agriculture and food on the basis of the findings of the latest report of the European Rapid Alert System (Rasff). A system that records alerts for verified food hazards due to chemical residues, mycotoxins, heavy metals, microbiological pollutants, dioxins or additives and dyes in the EU in 2020.
“In Italy – underlines Coldiretti – over eight out of ten food alarms have therefore been triggered due to dangerous foods from abroad”.
Sesame seeds from India, low-cost chicken meat from Poland, Turkish fruit and vegetables with Brazilian black pepper are in the sights: these are the foods that stand on the podium of the “black list” of the most dangerous products for health surveyed in the EU. The list, Coldiretti informs, also includes peanuts from the USA and Argentina, Turkish and Iranian pistachios and French oysters.
In general, at the top of the ranking of countries from which the most contaminated foods come are India, responsible for 12% of food alarms triggered in Europe, Turkey with 10% and Poland (10%) but “concerns – he continues Coldiretti – also come from France (6%), Holland (6%) and China (6%). It is necessary to ensure that imports of products from third countries respect the same social, health and environmental standards as Italian and European productions ».
Also at the Forum, Coldiretti raised the “Christmas” alarm, explaining that with the advance of infections and the possible change of color, 5 billion spent in restaurants and farmhouses for lunches and dinners on the end of the year holidays are at risk. “A risk to be avoided at all costs”, denounces the president Ettore Prandini in underlining the need to “not undermine a supply chain that employs 4 million people in 740 thousand farms and 70 thousand food industries”. The closures should, in fact, slow down the recovery of catering among the sectors most damaged by the pandemic, with out-of-home consumption which in 2020 fell to a minimum, causing an overall loss of almost 41 billion euros.