Online sales of rip-off parmesan cheese alone cost Italy €60 million last year, an employee at the Ministry of Food, Forestry and Agricuture told The Local.
There were 370 cases of fake parmesan sold online over the last 12 months, although Vincenzo Carrozzino, who works to combat fraud at the ministry, said Italian food fraud was so widespread it was difficult to estimate the real size of the problem.

The figures were revealed during a forum about Italian produce at Milan’s Expo on Monday.
The ministry is now working alongside online marketplaces, including Ebay and Alibaba, to ensure counterfeit versions of Italian produce protected by EU food quality labels are not being sold on their platforms.

According to Carrozzino, online agropiracy is a relatively new problem that is difficult to fight. “Sellers can work through nicknames and as soon as we signal the fraud and block it, they are back up on a different server under a different name,” he said.

bbabo.Net