Defending Food Safety: Italy's Carabinieri NAS Health Police Check Everything from Origin to Table to Feed, Issuing 200 Million Euros in Fines in a Single Year

People's health is the wealth of the nation; and since food is the first necessity of the people, Italy's Ministry of Health has established the Carabinieri Health Protection Command (NAS) to safeguard the safety of food and drink. It traces everything from the place of production to the dining table, regulating people's food and also inspecting animal feed, testing food while also checking environmental hygiene.

The Carabinieri Health Protection Corps under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health has set up investigation centers in Milan, Rome and Naples, the three major cities of the north, center and south, overseeing 38 branch offices. Among the current more than 1,200 health police officers, many have past experience working in the food industry and are familiar with the workings of the sector. In addition to the health police, Italy also has local health authorities, border customs and coast guard units, the national forest protection corps that inspects the fields, as well as the quality protection investigation center and the anti-fraud Carabinieri unit, all of which shoulder the responsibility of gatekeeping and defending food safety and the reputation of the gastronomic kingdom.

The health police inspect an average of 150 times a day, 50,000 times a year

According to the latest report released by the Ministry of Health, the health police carried out a total of 56,000 inspections in 2015, an average of more than 150 per day, and found 15,208 non-compliant cases, accounting for 27% of the total number of inspections, and seized more than 65,000 metric tons of food that could threaten people's health, with an estimated market value of about 750 million euros.

In addition, a total of 4,700 people were reported to the judicial authorities, of whom 120 were arrested for serious illegal circumstances; the amount of administrative fines issued reached 210 million euros, while criminal fines were about 10,000 euros.

The report also pointed out that restaurants are the places where food safety violations most often occur, mainly because of the lack of records or documents that make ingredients traceable, and poor hygiene conditions during operations. Meals and canteens in hospitals, sanatoriums and nursing homes also had violations, and last year an investigation project was also carried out targeting elementary school lunches.

Investigating the school lunch project

Early last year, parents at several elementary schools in Milan launched a campaign to boycott cod fish balls. Although the catering company supplying the meals said it welcomed parents to visit the central kitchen, the mother who launched the protest, Antonella Lucarelli, said: "The children don't like the cod fish balls, we raised the issue many times, but never received any response. More importantly, the ingredients in the cod fish balls are unclear, just like minced meat, and we demand that complete fish fillets be provided."

Amid the uproar, the health police formed a special project team and quietly launched an investigation. Several months later, Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin announced that inspections targeting school lunches had been under way for some time, and that reports were compiled once every three months. She said: "We want to know exactly what the problem is." In addition to food quality and safety, they also investigate whether the nutrition of the menus meets the needs of children of each age.

In the 2,680 inspections targeting school lunches, the health police found that the walls of some central kitchens were moldy, the vehicles transporting lunches did not meet regulations, or ingredients lacked traceable documents.

Stopping bad food before it reaches the table

Consumer rights expert Franca Braga said: "It's not that Italy has no tainted food, it's just that it is usually stopped before it reaches the table."

Strictly cracking down on food safety is not only about protecting consumers' rights, but also about safeguarding the reputation of honest manufacturers. In particular, food and agricultural products are Italy's export mainstay, usually sold to the high-end markets of Northern Europe, North America and Japan; besides being delicious, they must also have rigorous food safety quality control.

Even though the EU's food and agricultural regulations are said to be among the strictest in the world, the law alone is not enough to enforce itself; professional personnel must enforce the law for it to be implemented. And with hundreds of thousands of kinds of food, plus technology changing with each passing day and marketing methods constantly being renewed, information must be grasped in order to track down along the line foods that may endanger people's health.

"Some information comes from the Ministry of Health and the EU Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF), and some is from our own proactive investigations. However, the most important thing is reports from the public; Italians seem to be born with the DNA to detect food quality." explained Paolo Belgi, former head of the health police's Milan branch.

In 1962, Italy transferred the Carabinieri from the Ministry of Defense to establish the Carabinieri Health Protection Corps under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health, setting up investigation centers in Milan, Rome and Naples, the three major cities of the north, center and south, overseeing 38 branch offices. Among the current more than 1,200 health police officers, many have past experience working in the food industry and are familiar with the workings of the sector.

In order to defend food safety and the reputation of the gastronomic kingdom, in addition to the health police, Italy's local health authorities, border customs and coast guard units, the national forest protection corps that inspects the fields, as well as the quality protection investigation center and the anti-fraud Carabinieri unit, all shoulder the responsibility of gatekeeping, with the total number of inspections in a year exceeding 500,000. Frequent inspections and early detection of problems far surpass the Ah Q mentality of mending the fold after the sheep is lost, or of having no data when there is no investigation, and having no problems when there is no data.

Defending food safety and people's health, and tracking the flow of food all the way, requires solid action, step by step; otherwise "from the place of production to the dining table" will be reduced to a cliché that is endlessly consumed.