Lessons from a sandwich shop in Florence
This is the third and last article in a series of pieces decoding the European food quality labels, their modernization of production, and their damaging impact. Find the first piece here, and the second here.
Framed by the imposing Palazzo Vecchio and the Uffizi Gallery in the middle of Florence’s Centro Storico is one of the busiest sandwich shops in the whole of Italy, ALL’ANTICO VINAIO. Hundreds of people line up on the two mini-shops across from each other, as part of a cult that has grown around the famous sandwiches showcasing Italy’s finest cured meats and cheeses. Which begs the question, has anyone stopped to consider where do these hundreds [if not thousands] of pounds of cured meats come from?
Selling tradition is one of Italy’s biggest industries. From cheese, cured meats, leather products, and quaint cobblestone streets. Rightfully so, there is a long historical account of the products the country now exports. However, as with any product, mass-production to supply local consumption and exports relies on industrial methods.
All’Antico Vinaio is hardly the only shop in Italy [and the world] to serve Italian cured meats. In fact, you can now find this famous Florentine shop in Milan, New York, and Los Angeles, the same way you can find a shining Eataly store in many cities in the US and Europe, as proof of the power of the words ‘tradition’ and ‘Italian food’ to push the Made in Italy food brand.
So let’s start with the pig:
1- Where do all those pigs come from? From a CAFO — or concentrated animal feeding operation. In a recent study by the End the Cage Age, a European Citizen Initiative, Italy ranked as one of the worst when it came to welfare with 76% [or 45,767,880] animals being raised in cages.
In 2019, I visited a CAFO in Gavassa, province of Reggio-Emilia, as part of my thesis research. CAFOs are vital to the yearly production of 8.5 million prosciutto di Parma and 2.5 million prosciutto di San Danielle, among other pig leg products. The image I had of pigs running around in pastures was far from reality.
The tour of the facility reminded me of footage from pig farms in the United States. The stench of ammonia and feces carried us from room to room filled with pigs of different ages and feeding stages. The CAFO owner was proud to be one of the pig producers for prosciutto di parma, “We’re part of the group of exclusive producers who raise pigs in Italy for prosciutto.”
2- What do these pigs eat? GMO soy and corn, nutritional supplements, and antibiotics.
When I asked the CAFO owner about feed, he said, “Mangimi,” which is a mix of untraceable grains, including GMO grains from deforested lands in South America, purchased from large companies. The tight confinement and monotone diet depletes the animals’ immune system, so when I asked about antibiotics, the answer was, “We give them antibiotics as needed.”
3- What about all the poop? Similarly to practices in the US, for example, animal waste is collected in ‘slurry lagoons’ and later used to spray on the nearby land, or dumped into the nearby water sources. This waste carries with it toxins from the diet and remaining antibiotics, together with ammonia, and other greenhouse gases detrimental to the environment and human health.
4- What about salumi production? This is a tricky one.
Even though there are many small salumi producers in Italy, the question here is where does the pig meat they use come from? If it comes from one of the many CAFOs in Italy, or another European country [more on that in a minute] then the meat is tainted with GMOs, antibiotics, and animal cruelty.
I learned this during a visit to an industrial Salumificio in Modena where the factory manager pointed to the fact that they sell meat to small producers and butcher shops. At that point, the meat gets ‘greenwashed’ with words like ‘artisanal’ or ‘housemade’, and its past ignored and forgotten.
If, on the other hand, the salumi carries a signifier like prosciutto di maiale Nero or di cinghiale [wild boar], or finocchiona di Cinta Senese, then we could say the animals might have been raised in a different system. Indigenous Italian pig breeds have a hard time with tight confinement, therefore they are raised — mostly — by small farmers, and the final product carries the name of the pig.
Unfortunately, the majority of pigs raised in Italy, and in Europe, are the foreign hybrid breeds of Large White, Landrace, and Duroc, and a lot of that goes into making the famous DOP and IGP cured meats.
Let’s breakdown the IGP label
The European IGP (Protected Geographical Indication) label protects one step of a product’s production, usually the last step, regardless of the origin of the raw material. So, for example, Bresaola della Valtellina IGP, a beef cured meat made in the Valtellina region of Lombardy, relies on beef from Brazil. But that is just the beginning. For prosciutto cotto, the majority of the meat comes from outside of Italy, mostly Denmark and Germany, the meat is injected with a brine including flavorings and nitrates, then pressed into a mold and cooked. Other IGP salami like Mortadella di Bologna, and entire legs like prosciutto di Sauris, also use non-Italian raised pig legs.
The EU is the second-largest producer of pig meat in the world after China [I was surprised to learn that too]. In a complicated-to-follow list of transactions, Italy moves pork meat from other European countries, making it the biggest pork meat importer in the EU, and the third biggest worldwide. Pork meat production in the European Union, among other commodities like milk for cheesemaking, is made possible through the import of GMO soy products and corn from Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and the US. Which makes me wonder, is there a real superiority of European cured meats and cheeses at this point?
Moving on…
Let’s return to The Impact
The environmental impact of these products crosses the world. A recent study published in the journal Science found that as much as 22 percent of soy and 60 percent of beef exported from Brazil to the European Union is linked to illegal deforestation. Meanwhile, indigenous leaders in Latin America fighting against this system keep dying at a rapid rate, as they try to protect their land, their food sovereignty, and their own cultures and traditions.
The impact is also felt at home. The northern Adriatic Sea has turned into a dead zone, the Po River Valley, where the vast majority of CAFOs and BigAg operate, is one of the most polluted areas in Europe, and health problems are a constant problem for European citizens whose lives continue to be disturbed by Agribusiness.
Small responsible producers also suffer the consequences of an industrial food system using their traditions while slashing prices that outcompete them in the market. Meanwhile, indigenous breeds have disappeared, from more than 20 known Italian breeds at the turn of the 20th century, to 6 surviving today.
As I watch people parade their famous sandwich across Ponte Vecchio I think of all these facts and the lessons each slice of cured meat in that sandwich has to teach me. The question remains, is it worth supporting an exploitative and damaging system for the sake of a picture for Instagram?
