School of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine

Department of Agronomy, Food, Natural Resources, Animals and Environment

Master degree in ITALIAN FOOD AND WINE

Course: FOOD AND WINE HISTORY, ANTHROPOLOGY AND SOCIETY 2021-2022

Sustainable diet(s) & Sustainable food system(s)

The desire to promote sustainable food systems  has risen because all communities around the world have realised that there is a huge problem with  the management of agri-food systems. Thus, a  sustainable food system is one that encourages a competitive production system without generating  negative environmental, social and economic impacts.

Sustainable diets are defined by FAO experts as diets with low environmental impacts that contribute to food and nutritional security and to healthy lives for present and future generations.

According to FAO a sustainable diet is one « able to be maintained »

« The Mediterranean Diet has been championed  as a case study for sustainable diets as it embodies the four above outcomes »

Even if Italy’s Mediterranean diet is a good one, it can still be improved in many ways.  According to the Italian food related diseases website, currently around a million people suffer annually from a  food-borne illness in Italy and 500 of them died because of food -borne illness.

“All environmental analyses agree on the need to promote more plant-based diets ».  

Reducing protein intensive diets and promoting plant based diets could be a good way to improve Italy’s food impact and public health. Italy has a good production and distribution system of  fruits and vegetables but will have to improve its environmental impact regarding waste management and excessive industrialization of farms in order to better take into account sustainable development. Regarding dietary patterns, a return to traditional Italian plant  based diets and a reduction of ready-made and animal protein-based products will improve the  sustainability of the diet in terms of health and environmental impact.

With mandated quarantines, producers could not access markets and consumers changed how they shopped for necessities.  Producers had to reimagine the distribution of their products to reach consumers directly in their homes, as most of the population was living in a lockdown. Italians’ expenditure on at-home food consumption increased by six billion euros from 2019 to 2020 (Statista, 2021). Tognato describes  this as a “change in the paradigm” where companies had to “work completely differently.” This meant not only producing and selling products but also packaging and delivering them to a local market. Producers were able to adapt, showing flexibility in the local agricultural context quickly (Tarra ; et al., 2021). This resulted in new costs for producers, such as single-use packaging, storage, and transportation costs.

Consumption patterns shifted from buying in both the local and global food chains to heavily relying on the local food supply (Mazzocchi, 2020). The pandemic has brought the consumer closer to the producer, and now those who buy want to know, for example, what the bread they are buying contains and how the vegetables they eat are grown. This trend has favored small and medium-sized companies, which are increasingly  chosen by the consumer. If before the keywords were “organic” and “ecological”  the keyword now is certainly sustainable. This direct contact between producer and consumer creates a bond, and consumers become loyal, so they will be more inclined to continue shopping in the same place. The pandemic has led to not only  the consumers’ changes in eating and purchasing habits, but also to the producers’ new ways to carry on with their businesses, combining manual work with social media.

Governments are responsible for creating and enforcing the rules of a society, defense, foreign affairs, economy, and public services.

Producer is a person, company, or country that makes, grows, or supplies goods or commodities for sale.

Prosumers as consumers of their products, they must maintain a practicing system that respects the Food governance regulations, which is not only for the benefit of the government but for all.

Consumer is a person or a group who intends to order, or uses purchased goods, products, or services primarily for personal, social, family, household and similar needs, not directly related to entrepreneurial or business activities.

Is consumers’ choice important in the market?

The customer is always “The king” of the market. “Consumers by definition, includes everyone” stated President John.F.Kennedy). He offered this definition to the United States Congress on March 15, 1962, and this speech became the basis for the creation of World Consumer Rights Day, celebrated on March 15. This signifies how much the consumer controls the food system. Consumers’ opinion is significant about the food they consume. But sometimes they lack proper information, which could help them to make appropriate decisions rather than fall into incorrect ideas. So, it is also the duty of the producer and the prosumer to make sure that they prefer ethical strategy to profit-making. We hope, through the implementation of the FFS strategy and the accomplishment of the 2030 agenda, the ambiguity could be wiped off.

Some studies reported that consumers perceive local food to be better for the environment and also for society than organic food.

Local food is food that is produced within a short distance of where it is consumed, often accompanied by a social structure and supply chain different from the large-scale supermarket system.  Consumers choose to buy local foods for a wide variety of reasons, including their perceived nutritional superiority, health benefits, and advantages for the local economy.

Italy is the most known country for agritourism and winery tours. Here there are more than 500 thousands different farms and wineries all around the country. We have a look at some of them in the Veneto region.

Bogana Vini

Since the 1900s they have grown vines in the Asolo Prosecco Superiore DOCG. The wine production area is located north of Venice in the province of Treviso, in the Veneto region, in the hilly districts of the Montello and Asolo Hills: the foothills of the Dolomites. The main production is Prosecco DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita).

Casa aladin

Located in the Veneto Region, Casa Paladin is a family company producing wine since 1962, famous all over Italy. They focus on maintaining the heritage of an authentic taste of its wines and on the sustainability of its production. 

Making producers and consumers’ expectations on quality meet

What is quality?

“The totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy a given need.” (EOQC, 1972)

“In the case of FOOD, quality primarily involves safety, nutritive value, and acceptance”  (Lásztity, R., 2009)

Quality is coming to be seen as inherent in more “local” and more “natural” foods (Nygard and Storstad 1998). Thus, quality food production systems are being embedded in local ecologies.  An alternative geography begins to emerge because the local ecologies of quality food production are frequently to be found in areas that have escaped the industrialization processes that underpin globalization (Ilbery and Kneafsey, 1998)

CONVENTIONS WHICH DRIVE PRODUCERS AND CONSUMERS WAYS TO UNDERSTAND QUALITY (Barbera, Dagnes, 2017)

Boltanski and Thévenot (2006) identified six different conventions adopted by actors to orientate judgment and make an evaluation possible whenever the price is not enough to evaluate the quality of products, as in the case of agri-food products.

1. the market convention, expressed in terms of price, 
2. industrial convention where attention is paid to the existence and respect of productive technical standards
3. the way of fame, where quality is expressed in terms of expert opinions; 
4. the domestic convention, where uncertainty is resolved through the emphasis placed on guarantees and long term relationships; 
5. convention of inspiration, created by the enthusiasm of stakeholders in the productive process
   
6. civic convention, that refers to positive effects for local society and the environment.

Packaging is a way of communication between producer and consumer. The message that the producer sends should be straight forward, clear, unambiguous and help customers to understand the product and its quality.

We have interviewed the Società Agricola Fratelli Garbin, which provides the packaged food product: radicchio from Chioggia I.G.P and carrot. Their products are traded in Italy and also in Eastern Europe. In the video, we are talking about how the company is looking for the quality in their products. 

SOFT QUALITY AND ALTERNATIVE FOOD NETWORKS 

Alternative agri-food chains or alternative food networks (AFN) are a mixed group of practices, including direct sales by companies and home delivery such as box schemes. 

Examples of AFN:

• the box scheme was born at the beginning of the 90s in the United Kingdom. It is a distributive form in which the farmer periodically provides fresh products by delivering them directly to the consumer’s home;
• direct sale from companies, in open markets and local farmers’ markets; 
• forms of collective production and/or distribution, as in the case of community gardens or of solidarity purchasing groups. 

Finding quality fruit and vegetables within the alternative chains implies an objective and shared idea of quality itself. These networks rely on soft quality: it emphasizes the role of economic actors within a local context, respect for tradition, the existence of trust relations, attention for the environment, value given to shared community spirit and passion for farming.  Even if the soft quality is more relevant in AFNs, customers of large-scale organized distribution have their idea and consequently their demand for soft quality. In other words, it is plausible that differentiated composite concepts emerge from the various food chains, which orientate the idea of quality.

Making food unique and recognizable globally

Italian cuisine is recognized and appreciated all over the world, despite its apparent simpliness, as Prezzolini (a food critic) noted in 1954, “What is the glory of Dante compared to spaghetti?”. Some may argue that it’s because of the hearty “soul” of Italian dishes, and others might prefer the freshness of the ingredients. All in all, we are going to explain what makes a local food unique, and how to make it recognizable globally, particularly thanks to place-labelling. 

From terroir…

Terroir is a French word used to describe a region or territory whose soil, environment and local know-hows provide food products’ specific characteristics. It encapsulates the ideas one may have of tradition: specific environmental factors combined to human practices result in unique, distinct products. 

….to place-labelling

Labels of origin are modern forms of trying to link food to location via the concept of ‘terroir‘.

Place-labeling is, at its core, a “technique for developing a certain selective narration of a place that resonates with a chosen target group” (Johansson, 2012). Place labeling is fostered by a multitude of stakeholders including governments, the private sector, cultural institutions, educational bodies, and residents, all of whom invest variously in the communication of a place and its characteristics (Dinnie, 2011).

Also consumers play an important role: they place a higher value on items that may be linked to a specific area, terroir, or manufacturing technique.

Robert Govers, founding president of the International Place Branding Association (IPBA) developed a set of principles that summarize a good place branding campaign: 

• Singularity. What makes your brand unique. 
• Authenticity. We must also identify clearly and realistically the attributes that will form part of the brand identity in place branding. 
• Memorable. A recurring memory in which the brand of your place will be the first place that comes to mind. 
• Co-creation. Authenticity in place branding is based on co-creation by all those involved in the process. 
• Place Making. This concept consists of things: to build, develop products and strategic actions that support the brand’s promises; and to cooperate.

POSITIVE EFFECTS OF PLACE-LABELING

Barham (2003) suggests that ‘Geographical Indications’ can:

• Incite movement towards food production and consumer transactions integrated with local places, leading to local environmental benefits. 
• Act to entrain capital, contrary to its increasingly frictionless and placeless tendencies, because “a label of origin connects it with a specific place, and opens the possibility that producers, as well as consumers, can be held accountable for their actions in that place”. (2003: 130)

Knowing the “roots of food”

Local food is part of the legacy of a place. People are attached to this legacy: it is part of their roots. So why is it important to know the history of local food?

History plays a major role in food and wine production. The ancient methods of production changed and were improved to meet the needs of the new generation.

Combining tradition with innovation

Moving from the importance of knowing what makes your food and wine unique, thus knowing also its history, when you produce food and wine it is important also to combine tradition while always improving techniques through innovation. Especially in today’s fast-paced world where the consumer is constantly searching for new ways to experience their favorite beverages and interact with brands, innovation is key.

Examples: combining tradition and innovation in the wine sector.

Winemaking is steeped in centuries of tradition. However, even traditions can be improved with technology.  According to Francesco Bogana, the most challenging is to combine tradition with innovation; the interaction between farmers, science, and technology can improve production, carrying the best of the past to the future. Innovation in winemaking is a beautiful synergy of art and science, resulting in true masterpieces. It’s also about getting creative in strategizing new ways to reach out to customers and make their experience a better one. Bogana considers wine production a two-step process: first is the fieldwork, second is in the winery. According to his vision in the winery, we must use the technologies, so there’s no place for tradition because it is a scientific work that obtains a quality product. In the vineyard, the attitude is different; the company has selected ancient grape varieties, saving them from extinction. They replicated old vineyards by clonal cuttings to  give a second chance to varieties that represent the history of Venetian winemaking.

Heritage relates to inheritance meaning passing the beliefs, objects and cultures from one generation to another. A “heritage turn” has been observed in recent years.  This can be described as a shifting of opinion to place more value on a product with a higher perceived level of heritage (Geyzen, 2014).

Heritage is something that someone wishes to conserve or collect with the purpose of passing it on to future generations. Words commonly associated with heritage include:

Preservation        Patrimony        Tradition

What is Heritagization?

The classification of items and ideas according to the source of inheritance is referred to as heritagization. By this means of classification, a food product or location can be given added value; creating cultural and historical meanings and identities. Heritagization is claimed by the use of words to indicate authenticity and the claim can be legitimized. In the wine industry, there can be three categories of heritage:

In the past, there was more focus on the preservation of tangible heritage, such as objects in museums. Nowadays attention is also paid to the other forms of heritage. 

Is Heritagization a useful tool for promoting a winery?

“Heritage turn” has been  perceived in consumer habits  and for this reason“heritage marketing” may offer wineries a competitive advantage. The sharing of stories through marketing materials can be an effective tool to utilize heritage to promote a brand. In wine making authenticity is invoked to convey status, quality, and a link to the past.

How does Casa Paladin use Heritagization to appeal to the public?

Casa Paladin emphasizes the heritage of their winery in marketing materials in two notable ways. The first is the promotion of family and tradition and the second is the tangible heritage of the place. Notice the heritage appeal in these quotes from the Paladin website:

“We found our future on the roots of our family, our land, and our culture.”

“The Paladin family has been growing since 1962, gathering meaningful experiences and continuing to cultivate native grape varieties from its homeland in the Veneto region”

Casa Paladin: Future Plans

Casa Paladin has plans to further promote their heritage by creating an experiential exhibit at their Veneto location. With the “Time of the Vine” project, Paladin will establish an interactive outdoor laboratory with the goal of creating audience awareness of the winemaker experience, getting closer to nature, the soil, and highlighting the importance of the territory and the wine roots.

Benefits of food and wine as heritage

Francesco Bogana, of Bogana wines, believes that creating a winery on the hills which are registered in Unesco has helped and improved tourism in that specific zone. He also mentions the fact that selling of prosecco has increased about 300% specially out of Italy. He emphasizes the importance for the tourists coming from abroad to enjoy a wine tour at their winery. He believes he and his colleagues should take enough time to tell the story behind the winery and talk about the terroir and all the history that belongs to the wine, the land and the family. He also believes he doesn’t sell just a bottle of wine, he sells a territory, an area, a dream that once belonged to him and he made it come true. In the end he believed: “we are ambassadors of dreams”. In conclusion, we can say that the combination of a winery’s venerable history, strong identity, and signature products of great quality and tradition create a unique magnet for tourists.

“Tourism experience in which a person learns about, appreciates, consumes, or- dare we say- indulges in food and drink that reflects the local cuisine, heritage, or culture of the place”.   – Ontario Culinary Tourism Alliance (OCTA) –

There are a lot of reasons to visit Italy, but the incredible food has to be on the top of the list. Culinary  tourism is increasingly important for world travelers and Italy is at the top in Europe owing to many aspects be that culinary tourism or agro tourism. Italy has shown a considerable growth of culinary tourism over the last years, becoming one of the most dynamic and creative segments of tourism.

Culinary tourism in Italy had an economic impact of 12 billion € 

Culinary tourism includes several areas such as wine tourism, beer tourism, gourmet tourism and gastronomic tourism, and tourists can experience it through local and unique restaurants, breweries, wineries, culinary events, farmers’ markets and agri-tourisms.

Culinary tourism is not simply a commercial product, but also a cultural practice. Being with family and friends, and enjoying the natural landscape are important motivators for visiting agri-tourism destinations. Direct interactions between farmers and consumers generate solidarity, promoting the recovery of a sense of morality within the agri-food sector.

Agri-tourisms showed an increase of about 27% over the last 10 years.

Moreover, experiencing the farm lifestyle and learning about farming are crucial motivations for visiting agricultural environment for recreation. The same is true for the tourists’ perception that agricultural environment is associated with the authenticity of experiences. Tourists’ desire to experience local food and beverages in a tourist destination is strictly linked to cultural motivations, as experiencing new foods and dishes means also experiencing new cultures.

Agri-tourism destinations could represent an alternative to the unsustainable mass tourism practices, which have caused a detrimental use of urban and coastal spaces for tourism purposes. Local food here is perceived to be fresher and more nutritious than the food that has travelled for long distances and free of synthetic chemicals. Moreover, knowing the producer is perceived by consumers as a guarantee of the wholesomeness of local food.

Culinary tourism represents an emerging component of the tourism industry that focuses on food as an attraction for exploration creating demand for local food and craft. It  encompasses all the traditional values associated with the new trends:

•  respect for culture and tradition 
• a healthy lifestyle
•  authenticity
• sustainability
  

Benefits of culinary tourism 

The benefits of tourism for the company are not limited to financial ones. These are experiences and learning through the uniqueness of the regional food culture and the destination’s biodiversity that can intensify the connection between people and food, but also generate a lasting and remarkable memory for the tourist. If an appropriate transmission is done during the visit, it ensures the tradition to live on. It also helps raise awareness about the importance of food and  wine heritage, and why it should be protected. Benefits of food tourism do not concentrate only on tourists. A well-developed and structured experience can benefit the entire community and the environment. Agri-tourismcan contribute to rural socio-economic development as by combining agriculture and tourism, agritourism offers a new source of revenue  by creating new job opportunities. Accordingly, promoting culinary tourism in agri-tourisms represents a winning strategy for the development of the whole economy of rural areas. In the end, the benefits of the culinary tourism should be highlighted and those are:

• Development of social and cultural awareness
• Generation of additional income along the product value chain
• Support to biodiversity and preservation of cultural heritage
• Contribution to development of local communities
• Reduction of regional asymmetry, dispersion of tourists to more locations in the country
• Diversity of tourism offers throughout the year in a more sustainable way

Food tourism is a pathway to meaningful experiences that people are willing to try out while traveling. These experiences have a lasting positive effect as people usually seek to incorporate these learnings into their own lives upon returning home. As tourism is all about experiencing and discovering, wineries and farms should engage their audiences with original activities. In the wine sector, classic winery visits are often focused on the processes involved in wine-making. In order to propose more appealing activities, a few strategies can be highlighted.

1. Make highly interactive activities. Stimulating all five senses is primordial to catch the attention of tourists. For instance, a wine comparative tasting session can be organised.
2. Provide an educational experience. The terms used should be understandable by everybody, especially considering the fact that wine has a very specific vocabulary, often confusing to non-experts. By also learning about all of the environmental factors required to make a specific wine, visitors can realize that wine production is more complex than what they thought.
3. New technologies tie everything together. It allows the winery to produce video content, or even to visit the property in augmented reality. It makes the “fun” meet the “learn”.

Thus, tourists go back to their homes with unforgettable memories, and the will to protect wine heritage.

Examples of activities:

Storytelling

Many wineries bear an intangible heritage, often linked to the history of the family, to their identity. Its transmission through tourism participates in raising the attractiveness of the winery. Offering guided visits of the cellar is a way for a winery to promote what makes them different from the others, their identity. By telling the story of their brand to a small group of visitors, wineries can create a special link with them, adapting the story to their knowledge and educating the visitors. They can get a closer look at the specifics of their  wine making.

Storytelling allows the brand to differentiate from the competitors by giving real insights of the functioning of the winery, making it unique and by building a privileged relationship with its customers. These visits can be followed by wine tastings and sales. Thanks to this memorable experience, the heritage and authenticity of the brand make the visitor feel special. The story gives more reliability, value and quality to the brand. Visitors are particularly attached to learn the story of the family, and even more to hear the story from a family member, but also about the story of the territory. These exchanges are interactive and visitors are invited to ask questions. Storytelling is also a way to reconnect with the local community and to involve them into the life of the winery.

Online presence through social Media and Websites

For consumers visitors who cannot reach the winery, another way to provide them with information about the heritage is using social networks including Websites, Facebook, Instagram and more. Mass media have never in their history had such a strong impact as they have right now, mainly due  to the emergence of new technologies, which have become an important part of the marketing  strategies of the food and wine industry around the world.

Social networks offer a wealth of information on a large scale:

• History of the firm and the family
• Information about the products: type of wine, area and production, description of the process
• Online exhibition
• Provide services: hospitality, itineraries of discovery, Online shop
• Organized Events

Communication passes through the use of images, audiovisual contents, press presence. According to Francesco Bogana they implemented online shopping on Instagram and their website, but it was not so efficient for their occupation because of the nature of food and wine productions. 

The majority of the clients need to taste wine and then buy it. 99% of people preferred to purchase winery productions in presence according to the interview.

Food and Wine Exhibitions

There are many international exhibitions of relevance in the food and beverage sector, which is a strategic sector for Italy, the world leader for the quality of its food and wine products and absolute reference point for its capacity to combine innovation and tradition, taste and genuineness (Di Palma, 2019). For these reasons, Bogana Winery thinks that it is important to participate in such exhibitions, in fact, they have attended, and are committed to attend, many wine exhibitions, like ProWein 2016 , Expo 2015 and many local wine and food exhibitions in the Veneto region, as well as Vinitaly, one of the most important international wine exhibition. Francesco is keen to underline the importance and the relevance of food and wine exhibitions especially in the Asian market, in fact these exhibitions are the only way to enter these markets without the use of a commercial broker.

Casa Paladin and Sustainability

Many wineries are starting to focus on how they can be more environmentally friendly and sustainable. This can include using strategies to promote a better biodiversity in the vineyard. As well as starting to use more sustainable packaging or keeping sales more local to reduce the impact of transportation. Casa Paladin has started their “4 V Project” to help address these issues. Focusing on these four pillars helps Casa Paladin raise biodiversity and productivity while protecting the health of consumers and the environment (Paladin, 2021).

Santa Mama restaurant and sustainability

Locanda Santa Mama is a farmhouse restaurant from Crocetta del Montello in the region of Treviso. It is a traditional and typical Italian restaurant. The menu is sustainable and made with products from “local suppliers”. The menu of Locanda Santa Mama Restaurant is promoting sustainable food systems and sustainable diet in many ways. The restaurant is  obtaining food from local organic suppliers and that way they are reducing transport costs, pollution and  the risk of food spoilage.

“The philosophy “0 kilometers”, which is very popular these days, is a practice  that the restaurant have been using since the beginning. We pay a lot of attention when buying food  products to the quality of products and their freshness.”

Furthermore, they are offering their customers the sensation of degustation of  local food and local traditional dishes which is very appreciated by tourists who want to immerse  themselves into Italian culture and to have a unique experience. The restaurant adapts its menu  depending on a season of the year following the flow of nature and at the same time reducing  transport costs, pollution and food spoilage. Also, they are growing some vegetables on their own using organic growing practices, which are maintaining healthy biodiversity. 

“Teaching our customers to order only what they  actually can eat could make our food system and food systems in general much more sustainable.” 

In addition, the restaurant offers takeaway of the leftovers. 

“Also, sometimes our customers ask to take over their leftovers, so we think that some  of our customers are aware of sustainability. Regarding the food waste originated from food spoilage that it is not very common because of the equipment we use for storing the food

Tiengo farm and sustainability

The final example about food sustainability is the Tiengo Farm. Italian farmers have significantly reduced the use of pesticides and the emission  of greenhouse gases. During the interview, we learnt, for example, that at the Tiengo Farm, even though they don’t produce organic products, no pesticides or fertilizers are added to the  vegetables