In 2023, foreign consumers purchased “falsified” products purporting to be typical Italian for a value of 63 billion euros. This phenomenon, known as “Italian sounding”, indicates that the value of authentic Italian food & beverage exports could have reached 126 billion euros, if added to the 62 billion of genuine Made in Italy agri-food exports.
The Italian region most affected by Italian sounding is Lombardy, with a negative economic impact of 10.2 billion euros per year, followed by Veneto (10 billion) and Emilia-Romagna (9.9 billion). Research by The European House – Ambrosetti highlights that the imitation of Italian products has prevented foreign sales of almost 9 billion euros for Piedmont (8.7 billion), 5.5 billion for Campania and 3.5 billion for Tuscany, which suffers in particular from the counterfeiting of extra virgin olive oils and wines.
Trentino-Alto Adige is also affected, with losses of 3.3 billion euros, more than Puglia (2.8 billion) which suffers from imitation of oil and agricultural products. Sicily records an impact of 1.7 billion euros, higher than that of Friuli Venezia Giulia (1.6 billion), where hams are particularly subject to imitations. The impact of Italian sounding on other Italian regions was a total of 6.3 billion euros in 2023.
