Italian Consortia Sign Major Agreement, Triggering Backlash

A sec­tor agree­ment was signed in Rome by the orga­ni­za­tion of farm­ers Coldiretti, the olive oil producer’s con­sor­tium Unaprol, the trade asso­ci­a­tion Federolio and the pro­moter of Italian prod­ucts FAI S.p.A., includ­ing the main Italian bot­tling com­pa­nies.

The deal — announced at Palazzo Rospigliosi dur­ing a con­fer­ence titled ​“seg­ment to develop: new prospects for con­sump­tion and demand” pro­moted by Federolio — will cover 10,000 tons of olive oil, with a sup­ply chain value of over €50 mil­lion.

According to Coldiretti, the set­tle­ment is aimed at ​“ensur­ing the safety and dif­fu­sion of 100 per­cent Italian olive oil, while sta­bi­liz­ing the eco­nomic con­di­tions for sales.”

Starting from the cur­rent olive oil cam­paign, the pact is intended to ​“guar­an­tee the sta­bil­ity and eco­nomic sus­tain­abil­ity of the farm­ers who take part in it.” A key pro­vi­sion calls for ​“a price thresh­old suf­fi­cient to cover the costs for pro­duc­tion and trace­abil­ity of the sup­ply chain, with the pos­si­bil­ity of an increase based on qual­i­ta­tive para­me­ters.”

The objec­tive of the agree­ment accord­ing to its stake­hold­ers is ​“to defend pro­duc­tion, ensure the sus­tain­able use of the ter­ri­tory, enhance the dis­tinc­tive­ness, ensure the right dis­tri­b­u­tion of value among all parts of the sup­ply chain, recon­struct an iden­tity of the coun­try sys­tem and regain mar­ket shares.” Moreover, it aims ​“to bring together Italian com­pa­nies and defend them from the attacks of multi­na­tion­als which acquire Italian brands to exploit their image on national and inter­na­tional mar­kets and give an appear­ance of ​‘Italianity’ to for­eign pro­duc­tions.”

During the con­fer­ence held at Palazzo Rospigliosi, it was stated that the whole­sale price of the afore­said vol­ume of olive oil would be set at about €4/kg. Then, the sec­re­tary gen­eral of Coldiretti, Vincenzo Gesmundo, launched a pro­posal for a new type of blend called ​‘Italico’ which, if it is approved, would con­sist of 50 per­cent Italian olive oil and 50 per­cent of olive oil from EU and non-EU coun­tries.

In spite of the moti­va­tion of the initiative’s pro­mot­ers, who described it as a ground­break­ing and patri­otic act, this pro­voked many reac­tions in the indus­try among pro­duc­ers’ orga­ni­za­tions and con­sumer groups.

The Italian olive oil indus­try asso­ci­a­tion Assitol issued a press release stat­ing that the ​‘Italico’ blend would divide the oil sec­tor with­out help­ing con­sumers. ​“Blending is an impor­tant asset of the olive oil indus­try,” said the pres­i­dent of the Association’s olive oil group, Anna Cane. ​“However, the pro­posal for the ​‘Italico’ as it was designed and pre­sented raises doubts in the indus­try and it is liable to con­fuse con­sumers.”

For Assitol, the pro­tec­tion of the 100 per­cent Italian olive oil should fol­low other paths. ​“The pro­mo­tion of local extra vir­gin olive oil must be played accord­ing to the prin­ci­ples of qual­ity, gen­uine­ness, trace­abil­ity and food safety,” Cane argued, adding that ​“in the midst of a con­sumer cri­sis, a pos­i­tive sto­ry­telling of extra vir­gin olive oil is essen­tial, espe­cially since it is often the vic­tim of an infor­ma­tion with scan­dalous con­no­ta­tions.”

“For these rea­sons, we did not really feel the need for a new rea­son for the frag­men­ta­tion of the olive oil world,” the pres­i­dent of the association’s olive oil group remarked. In this regard, Assitol reit­er­ated the impor­tance of a shared path between all the play­ers in the sec­tor. ​“We look for­ward to any ini­tia­tive to pro­mote extra vir­gin olive oil, on con­di­tion that it is inclu­sive and open. Therefore, we reaf­firm the role of the new inter­pro­fes­sional orga­ni­za­tion FOOI, which was founded to unite, not to divide, the dif­fer­ent souls of the olive oil sec­tor,” Cane con­cluded.

Severe crit­i­cism was also expressed by the national con­sor­tium of olive grow­ers CNO. ​“This agree­ment is an attack on the Italian extra vir­gin olive oil, on the pro­duc­ers of our coun­try and the health of con­sumers,” said the pres­i­dent Gennaro Sicolo, who did not mince words on the new mea­sures.

“The seri­ous­ness of this ini­tia­tive results from the fact that some com­pa­nies try to get to the clear­ance of oil blends com­posed by Italian, EU and non-EU olive oils, which have always been rejected by the world of pro­duc­tion,” Sicolo said. ​“According to (the agree­ment), the work of olive grow­ers is worth about 4 euros per kg, which is well below the cost of pro­duc­tion, con­sid­er­ing 4.80 euros per kg in the south, 7 euros per kg in cen­tral Italy, and 9 euros per kg in the north,” he observed.

“We will oppose in any way this plot that the pres­i­dent of Federolio called ​‘Italico’ — a cam­ou­flaged Italian-sound­ing which aims to waste the extra­or­di­nary and unique Italian vari­ety of monocul­ti­var, PDO, PGI and organic olive oils which con­sti­tute the real wealth of Italian olive grow­ing,” Sicolo con­tin­ued, while an online peti­tion was launched by the CNO against the ​‘Italico.’

The orga­ni­za­tion of pro­duc­ers Unasco also rejected the agree­ment. ​“Against this ini­tia­tive, we demand the inter­ven­tion of the Government and the Parliament, to defend the rights of cit­i­zens and con­sumers to trans­parency and to gen­uine­ness,” the pres­i­dent Luigi Canino told the mag­a­zine Teatro Naturale.

“Words are impor­tant and the olive oil mar­ket needs true words and gen­uine and trans­par­ent prod­ucts,” he said. ​“We are com­mit­ted to offer­ing con­sumers 100 per­cent made in Italy olive oils, among which every per­son can choose their own, aware of buy­ing a real Italian prod­uct from olive trees cul­ti­vated in Italy with olives pressed in Italy,” Canino declared.

“We will do every­thing in our power to stop the bar­gain­ing of Italian extra vir­gin olive oil in the name of the profit of the few. Italians and con­sumers all over the world have the right to enjoy the qual­ity and nutraceu­ti­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics of our oil,” he con­cluded.

Unaprol, in turn, said the safe­guard of the 100 per­cent Italian olive oil is the fun­da­men­tal con­di­tion of any agree­ment. ​“The mea­sure will attach the full impor­tance to qual­ity, rewarded with price increases rang­ing from 0.30 to 0.60 euros based on para­me­ters of sus­tain­abil­ity,” said pres­i­dent David Granieri.

“These are sig­nif­i­cant incen­tives for the olive grow­ers, which start imme­di­ately in view of the 2018 – 2019 oil cam­paign that is expected to be com­plex due to the frosts of February,” he added. ​“It becomes clear that in such a sit­u­a­tion, with the sec­tor in dif­fi­culty and in loss of mar­ket shares, it is nec­es­sary to try to build a new model start­ing from the sup­ply chain.”

But despite the reas­sur­ances from the initiative’s pro­mot­ers, crit­i­cism showed no sign of dimin­ish­ing, while the daily news­pa­per Italia Oggi reported that one of the rea­sons behind the agree­ment was to save pro­duc­ers’ orga­ni­za­tions from a cri­sis in sales.

At the time of writ­ing, Coldiretti launched the fol­low­ing press release:

“There is no ref­er­ence to the name ​‘Italico’ nor to blends of Made in Italy extra vir­gin olive oils with those imported from abroad in the largest sec­tor agree­ment of all time signed by Coldiretti, Unaprol, Federolio and FAI S.p.A. (Filiera Agricola Italiana), which involves the main Italian pack­ag­ing com­pa­nies.

The sig­na­tory orga­ni­za­tions have made it known that it is a fake news that is wide­spread to try to hit a his­toric agree­ment for 100% Italian oil, from olives grown and milled in Italy, which cov­ers a quan­tity of 10 mil­lion tons for a value of the sup­ply chain con­tract of over 50 mil­lion euros, which cuts off inter­me­di­aries, spec­u­la­tions and fix­ers.

This is a fake news, more or less self-serv­ing, for inter­ests that have noth­ing to do with the good of Made in Italy and of thou­sands of con­sumers and agri­cul­tural entre­pre­neurs who are inter­ested in freely eval­u­ate the oppor­tu­ni­ties and the con­di­tions offered by a con­tract with a min­i­mum guar­an­teed price and finally the pos­si­bil­ity of a multi-year pro­duc­tive plan­ning.”

#Olio: NO a #Italico in etichetta. Un blend di oli comu­ni­tari non deve essere con­fuso con il prodotto ital­iano. Perdurare su questa linea vuol dire dec­retare il tra­monto defin­i­tivo del #MadeInItaly. E’ in atto una vera e pro­pria guerra all’#Olio#Evo. https://t.co/azKdqRKWRmpic.twitter.com/Tnjo1Tjn4X

— Accursio Alagna (@accursioalagna) July 5, 2018

“L’olio #Italico è un inganno per i con­suma­tori”. Al via la petizione #Cno@KonsumerItalia#noallemis­cele#salvi­amolo­lioital­iano@giamma71@TeatroNaturale@ColombaMongiell@consumatori@fedconshttps://t.co/JRcUEWShNfpic.twitter.com/VBNHJb8hg7

— il Salvagente (@ilSalvagenteit) July 2, 2018

• Coldiretti


• Teatro Naturale


• Consorzio Nazionale degli Olivicoltori