Real ‘Taste of Italy’ at Tuttofood

The second edition of Tuttofood, held in Milano, Italy, June 10-13, was sold out. With stand space exceeding 74,000 square meters (+31% compared with 2007) occupied by 1,500 companies (+21.9%), and over 30,000 visitors (+35%) walking the aisles, the organizer was quite pleased with the result.

“Tuttofood has kept its promises, becoming within a two-year period the platform for the internationalization of the Italian agri-food industry,” said Sandro Bicocchi, managing director of Fiera Milano International. “The Italian agri-food sector can now legitimately aspire to compete on a level playing field with strong and important national industries from other countries, such as France and Germany, which until recently had much larger and more attractive fairs.”

While clearly dominated by Italian food producers, 234 foreign exhibitors (+30.9% over 2007) were on the scene, 13 of which were not present for the previous edition. Not hard to find were innovative frozen products, ranging from an extensive assortment of Laboratorio Tortellini restaurant-quality pasta from Emilia Romagna-based Surgital, and potato gnocchi from Italgnocchi Specialita of Correggio, to Pizza Vissana baked by Svila Srl of Visso, a small village on the slopes of the Sibillini Mountains.

Clearly the “Made in Italy” stamp of authenticity is something buyers of Italian foods are going to be seeing more of, as efforts are intensified to differentiate genuine Italian products from fakes. During the show’s opening ceremony, Agriculture, Food and Forestry Minister Luca Zaia reasserted that the government will enforce a rigorous policy to defend quality, and take action against imitation Italian foods.