“The pasta factory is represented by a politician who hates the South”, wrote the users on social media who, in front of the images of the minister visiting the Benevento pasta factory, launched the hashtag #boicottarummo. Cosimo Rummo, president of the company of the same name, said he was speechless: “Beyond political ideas, there are the rules of good education and respect for positions. I don’t ask anyone for their party card when they come into my house”
Pasta Rummo at the center of social controversy over an issue that has become political. It all started with the visit of Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini to the Benevento plant last Thursday. A visit that was not appreciated by many social media users who, as if the presence of the minister made the pasta factory politically aligned, launched the hashtag #boicottarummo on X, with attached photos and screenshots of Salvini inside the pasta factory with lots of white coat and cap on his head. The anti-Rummo campaign soon reached thousands of views, also thanks to a video posted by Matteo Salvini himself on his channels in which he pays homage to the pasta factory’s activity. “In the face of those who want insect flour, worms, grasshoppers,” he wrote. “To all those in Brussels who fight the Mediterranean diet. Here they make 800 thousand packages of pasta a day, an extraordinary thing. Long live our pasta, long live our quality”.
Boycott and counter-response
Stop buying Rummo pasta: this is the aim of the boycott campaign that forced Cosimo Rummo, president of the pasta factory, to respond to the attacks. “I am speechless,” said the entrepreneur in ainterview with Corriere del Mezzogiorno. “The Minister of Infrastructure is coming to make investments in Benevento, he asks to come and visit the plant, I don’t understand what they want: should I close the door in their faces? I do not understand”. As Rummo himself underlined, it is not the first time that the establishment welcomes political figures: “I had Gentiloni visit me as prime minister, Andrea Orlando when he was minister”.
From pasta to politics
For Rummo’s patron, anyone who wanted to see Matteo Salvini’s visit to the Benevento factory as a political act had the wrong point of view. “We are a point of reference in the South for the excellence of our production – reiterated Cosimo Rummo – it is an honor and a pride to be able to welcome the institutions”. And he added: “Beyond political ideas, there are the rules of good education and respect for positions. I don’t ask anyone for their party card when they come into my house. Companies have a social value. I work with the whole world.” According to the words of the protesters, Salvini does not favor the south: “It is absurd to be represented by a character who has always insulted the south. He needs pride and dignity”, we read for example in the comments that appeared on Pasta Rummo’s Facebook profile. “If that were the case – the entrepreneur replied then – by visiting the factory he realized that there is a South that is anything but the son of a lesser God, we are at the forefront of the world and we work in Southern Italy”. In short, despite those on the left and those on the right, Rummo concludes, “pasta is the most democratic food that exists in the world“.