Food safety and quality

Over 4 million families (16% of the total) are concerned about the quality of the food products they usually buy, almost 53% of them have some slight doubts about some product categories, while only the remaining 30.7% say they are sure of the foods they consume.

These are, in summary, the main results of the Accredia "Osservatorio" on food safety and quality carried out in collaboration with CENSIS, on a sample of 1,200 families, from which the many fears that creep in among a large number of consumers emerge.

This widespread fear of families seems paradoxical in a country like Italy, which has some of the most rigorous food controls in Europe. Only the over one thousand accredited laboratories perform an average of more than 2.3 million analyses on food every year, while, during 2012, approximately 70 certification bodies checked over 80 thousand companies of products with the DOP, IGP and STG trademarks and 50 thousand organic operators.

The information relating to the control system is then completed with the framework of activities carried out by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agricultural Policies whose collaboration with the Authority, in this sector even more than in others, works by virtue of mutual trust and contributes to enhancing the high skills in safety and quality that the country has.