Pasquariello, Camst, "The quality of food information must be a goal"
Antonella Pasquariello, president of the cooperative Camst, one of the great companies of Italian collective catering, will be guest of the inaugural conference of the festival dedicated to food policies. The Camst experience will be useful to understand how the orientation of the citizens in terms of food quality is changing and what interventions are necessary to satisfy the quality request in the producer-supplier chain.
«Our presence on the market since more than 70 years - Pasquariello pressed - has allowed us to have a privileged observatory in witnessing changes in consumer needs in the various sectors. The common denominator that characterizes them, whether we are talking about school canteen or commercial catering, is precisely the attention to quality and safety expressed in various ways: from the choice of raw materials to the preparation, from the presentation of the dishes to the delivery, in the case of meals prepared in our 44 centralized kitchens. This is accompanied by the demand for increasingly diversified menus also because the tastes and trends change: biological, vegan, Km 0, but all at low prices because, over time, spending capacity has also decreased. In short, a complex job in which the ingredients that cannot be missing, and that have allowed us to be constantly growing on the market, are really food quality and safety ".
You are the administrators of the cooked and served product. How much do users know about a canteen of purchasing processes, certifications, hccp procedures, work processes? And what do you do to let your audience know what's behind a meal in the canteen?
"We are aware of the opportunities and weaknesses of communication in our sector: the perception of the external public, in various ways, from the final consumer to the various stakeholders of the sector, compared to the complexity of the security system that characterizes our profession is tarnished. Our expected image, based on the awareness of a perfectly oiled and safe gear, as made by capable people and masters of the trade and by cutting-edge technologies that allow us to safely manage all the steps of the transformation, does not always coincide with the image perceived outside.
In Camst we love a lot open the doors of our centralized kitchens to journalists and citizens because we believe they are important moments of transparency and sharing of our work that go in the direction of bridging this sack. But we believe we can do more, generally in the sector. It is time to put into circulation a virtuous system of correct information that responds to reality, to avoid the false myths that the public is in danger of nourishing themselves with harm»
The canteen services, especially in school catering, are often at the center of news stories generated by food alarms which in most cases later prove to be groundless. Often the cause is bad information on food and the processes to which it is subjected, which also arises from prejudices, cultural beliefs, urban legends. In short, you are often the litmus test of food disinformation that circulates among the public. What can institutions do to improve the information and culture of food and its transformation between families, teachers and young users?
«It is necessary, as anticipated, to put into circulation a virtuous system of information in which the institutions have a priority role in raising awareness of correct information on food. THE'Nutrition education should be a common goal of the various actors who, especially in the public sector, have a role in the construction of this collective imagination far from reality, in order to avoid alarmism, psychosis and extremist attitudes. The meal at school is first of all an educational moment, it is necessary that food education projects adequately accompany the path of growth of children and, for this to happen, it is necessary that public contracts give relevance to this aspect, not sacrificing it in favor of the logic of maximum reduction ».
