La Repubblica, one of the biggest and most respected Italian newsapers, yesterday reported ‘alarming’ news for the future of Italian-made canned tomatoes, a staple ingredient for hundreds of Italian recipes.
The launch of a new Chinese brand of canned ‘pomodori’ on the Italian market has created havoc among local producers, worried that this cheaper product will have a negative effect on the sales of canned tomatoes made in Italy. The Chinese company behind this unexpected ‘coup’ is Chalkis, a Xinjiang-based kickass producer ranking second in the world for tomato production: a position reinforced with their recent acquisition of ‘Conserves de Provence’ a leading tomato producer company from France.
“Chinese competition has to be fought with market transparency – said Paolo Bedoni, president of Coldiretti, a big association of local Italian farmers – Consequently, there is the immediate need to activate a law prescribing to clearly write the territorial origin of a product on the label”.
What is this ‘transparency’ crap Mr. Bedoni? We thought that fair competition should be based on a healthy, balanced relationship among price, quality and market demand and regulations, not on discrimination based on ‘territorial origin’. We think that the Italian consumers should be the judge: if the Xinjiang tomatoes suck, you can be sure that Italians won’t buy them to make their beloved ‘ragu’ sauce. But if the Xinjiang tomatoes rock da sauce, well, Italian producers should work on ways to make theirs better and possibly cheaper.
This is what we call market competition.
By Mauro Marescialli
The image was taken from La Repubblica, and depicts Mr Bedoni holding a can of Chinese Chalkis tomatoes.