How to read an Italian food label

Start with the EU baseline. Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 sets the mandatory particulars on every pre-packed food: the legal name, the ingredient list in descending order of weight, the fourteen allergen categories emphasised within that list by bold, capitals or colour, the QUID percentage of any ingredient highlighted on the front, net quantity, a date. "Da consumarsi preferibilmente entro" is best before, "da consumarsi entro" is a use-by date and is a safety limit. Storage conditions, the name and address of the responsible food business, the nutrition declaration per 100 g or 100 ml, and a minimum x-height of 1.2 mm so it is actually readable. The batch code is preceded by an L. Origin is compulsory only for defined categories: beef, honey, olive oil, fresh fruit and vegetables, fish, and since 1 April 2015 fresh pork, sheep, goat and poultry meat under Regulation (EU) No 1337/2013.

Pasta is where Italy went further than the EU. Interministerial decrees signed in 2016 and 2017 imposed national origin labelling on pasta, rice, tomato products and dairy; the pasta decree of 26 July 2017 applied from 17 February 2018 on an experimental basis and has been extended several times since. What you read on the packet is "Grano duro coltivato in", the country where the durum wheat was grown, and "Molito in", where it was milled. "UE e non UE" means a blend, in practice usually including Canadian, American, Australian or Kazakh durum; that is not automatically worse, since Canadian durum is high in protein, but it is information you are entitled to. Alongside sits Regulation (EU) 2018/775, in application since 1 April 2020: where the origin of a food is given, including through a flag or an image, and its primary ingredient comes from somewhere else, the label must say so.

The next distinction is the one that catches most buyers. "Prodotto in Italia", produced in Italy, follows customs origin under article 60 of the Union Customs Code, Regulation (EU) No 952/2013: the last substantial, economically justified processing. "Confezionato in Italia" means only that it was packed there. "Prodotto per" or "distribuito da" identifies a brand owner, not a maker. Italy adds a requirement the rest of the EU does not have: Legislative Decree 145/2017 restored the obligation to print on the label the address of the plant where the food was produced or packed. It is a quietly powerful line: a cheese sold with Emilian imagery whose plant address sits in another region has told you something the front of the pack did not.

Then there are the codes that identify an actual producer. The oval health mark required by Regulation (EC) No 853/2004 gives the country code, the plant's approval number and CE: IT xxxx CE. On a Parmigiano Reggiano wheel the pin-dot matrix around the rind carries the dairy's registration number and the month and year of production, and the Consortium's website lets you look that dairy up by number, and the difference between a cheese from a 200-cow mountain dairy and one from an industrial plant is legible if you bother. Eggs carry a producer code under EU marketing rules whose first digit is the farming method: 0 organic, 1 free-range, 2 barn, 3 cage, followed by the country code, the municipality's ISTAT number and the farm identifier. Organic food carries the EU leaf, a control body code in the form IT-BIO-xxx, and an origin statement reading EU Agriculture, non-EU Agriculture or Italian Agriculture.

Olive oil and wine are where the small print pays best. Under Regulation (EU) No 29/2012 origin is mandatory on extra virgin and virgin olive oil, and blends must state "blend of olive oils of EU origin", "of non-EU origin" or a combination, and the wording is compulsory but tiny, and it is the single most useful line on the bottle. The harvest year may be shown only if all the oil comes from that harvest, so its presence is a positive signal and its absence is worth noticing; Italian Law 9/2013 requires the origin to appear in the principal field of vision at a legible size and caps the best-before date at eighteen months from bottling. On wine, a DOCG bottle must carry a numbered state seal issued by the Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato and a DOC bottle may; "imbottigliato all'origine" means bottled by the producer; "contiene solfiti" is mandatory above 10 mg/l; and since Regulation (EU) 2021/2117, wines produced from the 2023 harvest onwards must carry a full ingredient list and nutrition declaration, either on the label or through a QR code that takes you to them.