ALESSANDRIA – Bakery products such as bread, breadsticks, biscuits made with 100% Alessandria wheat, a guarantee of quality and healthiness, to protect the territory and its biodiversity.
The goal must be to make the most of local wheat productionguarantee increasingly positive remuneration for farmers and offer complete traceability and quality to consumers who are increasingly attentive to the origin of ingredients.
“The crisis in the cereal sector is unfortunately a fact. For too many months now, thanks to the international market situation, we have been experiencing with apprehension the prices in free fall and prospects that make us hold our breath: Alessandria, one of the granaries of Italy, cradle of excellent soft wheat, must find solutions and new growth prospects. Which? Supply chain projects, the only trajectory for the future“, he has declared Carlo BoidiPresident of Coldiretti Alessandria area.
For this reason, from the stage of the San Giorgio Fair, Coldiretti Alessandria launched a a specific invitation to the virtuous agro-industries of the territory that deal with transformation, to enhance the local product and obtain baked products truly prepared with zero kilometer flourto guarantee income for companies and respond to the needs of consumers who are increasingly attentive to the origin of ingredients, protecting the biodiversity of the Alessandria area.
The initiative, entitled “Very short supply chain pasta”included in the San Giorgio Fair, organized by the City of Alessandria Municipality in Piazzetta della Lega, saw the participation, with the Mayor Giorgio Abonante and the Trade Councilor Giovanni Berrone, of numerous citizens: the common thread was His Majesty’s agnolotto, available in different “versions”, a typical dish of the province and Piedmont.
At the round table, moderated by the Deputy Director of Coldiretti Alessandria and Head of the Economic Area Emiliano Braccothe Zone President took part Carlo Boidi, Franco Maranzanaentrepreneur from Predosa and member of the cereal commission in the Chamber of Commerce, Carlo Pagella cereal grower from Bosco Marengo e Federico Maggi, young entrepreneur from Castelnuovo Scrivia.
Generations compared but a common objective, the defense of Made in Italy, as underlined by Federico Maggi referring to the mobilization organized by Coldiretti at Brenner where dozens of trucks loaded with flour, cereals and bread destined for different areas of Italy were stopped , ready to magically become 100% Italian products after crossing the border.
“A fundamental part, when talking about the agnolotto supply chain, is represented by the pasta, therefore the flour with which it is made and the quality of the wheat from which it all begins. An excellent production, the cereal one, which is subject to speculation due to the increase in imports, putting the future of one of the most representative sectors at risk. This is why it is important to continue to encourage supply chain contracts, understood as the set of production, transformation, marketing and distribution phases of agricultural and agri-food products”, he stated. Emiliano Bracco.
“In order to implement the project and to be increasingly self-sufficient, we also want to remind the virtuous agro-industry of our willingness to increase the quantities produced in order to also guarantee fair prices to companies, which never fall below production costs, as foreseen the new law to combat unfair practices, always protecting the biodiversity of our territories. A long-awaited response from the local industries which, however, continue to obtain supplies from other territories and countries”, he added Carlo Boidi.
There are many repercussions of the final green light from the European Parliament to the extension until June 2025 of the suspension of duties on agri-food imports from Ukraine: a missed opportunity for Italian wheat.
In fact, if on the one hand it is a priority to support Ukraine, on the other the failure to extend the safeguard clause to wheat as an “emergency brake” risks creating serious distortions within the European cereal market in a context already destabilized by the invasion of Russian and Turkish products which has caused the prices paid to farmers to collapse.
To support the tormented Ukraine, without damaging Italian and European producers, the Coldiretti has proposed the use of European warehouses to store Ukrainian cerealspreventing them from entering the common market and instead allocating them to countries that do not have enough food to feed the population, such as African countries.
Thanks also to the concessions, according to the Coldiretti analysis on Istat data, arrivals of Ukrainian soft wheat for bread in Italy have quadrupled (+283%) in 2023 compared to 2021 before the start of the war, reaching 470 million kilos.
Many have signed to support the nofakeinitaly petitionaimed at obtaining a European popular law to guarantee transparency on the labels of all foods marketed in the European Union.
For the occasion, a cooking show was set up by the peasant chefs of Campagna Amica to move from words to deeds, from flour to agnolotti: it was Stefania Grandinetti, Regional President of Terranostra agritourism, to reiterate “how fundamental it is, for the success of a dish, to start from quality ingredients, preferably from a short supply chain. A concept that is also and above all valid when talking about flour and leavened products”.
