Yesterday was World Food Safety Day, a global initiative launched in 2019 by WHO, FAO, CODEX Alimentarius, and the Ministry of Health's Directorate General for Hygiene, Food Safety, and Nutrition (Dgisan). For over 60 years, the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Health has been closely monitoring the food sector to ensure compliance with the rules in place to protect citizens' health. Over 8,000 tons of irregular foods of various kinds (fish products, dairy products, meat, bakery products and cereals, soft drinks and drinks) were removed from the tables of Italians in the last year due to unknown origin, poor hygienic-sanitary conditions, storage in inadequate environments, the presence of obvious signs of alteration, or expiration dates that had passed, for a total value of over 34 million euros. In total, approximately 27,000 inspections were conducted across the entire agri-food chain (production, distribution, and catering), revealing irregularities in over 10,000 structures (37%). During the checks, 16,118 violations of national and EU regulations governing food hygiene and safety were discovered; 3 food business operators were arrested (2 veterinarians in charge of meat and dairy supply chain controls for corruption and abuse of office, a dairy owner for theft of electricity), 9,328 subjects were reported to the competent Authorities (of which 772 were reported to the Judicial Authority), and high administrative penalties totaling more than 126 million euros were imposed. 798 facilities (warehouses, restaurants, bakeries, production and sale of various foods, etc.) were closed due to serious sanitary and authorization irregularities totaling more than 500 million euros.
|