Tried by the lingering evils of unfortunate events involving their meat, British people no longer know what to safely put on the dinner table. So they have turned to Italy for help. At least, one would be justified in getting this impression from Safeway's initiative of offering one month of Italian products in view of Pavarotti's concert in Hyde Park on the 14th of July.

The other celebrities involved in the Safeway Italian Job are olive oil, wine, cheese, ham, sauces and desserts from all over Italy, which will reign supreme on Safeway's shelves in June.

Coloured in red, white and green, 470 supermarkets across Britain will be offering Italian food, drinks, culture and spirit to 7 million weekly shoppers through a celebration of the country's gastronomic delights in collaboration with the English ICE bureau.

"We're not talking about Italian products made in England," Trading Director Jack Sinclair points out, "but genuine products imported from the Italian regions, with all their ample variety of foods". The promotion will therefore include original and typical products from Piedmont to Calabria, from Friuli to Apulia, brought over to England to revitalize the homogenized, fading fast local market.

Through the centuries English contribution to gastronomic delights has been very modest, consisting, at its highest peak, of the celebrated fish and chips, or roast beef with boiled peas and carrots for the more sophisticated, with a helping of Yorkshire pudding. It is not surprising that GB fell under the lure of the stylish French dishes, followed by the arrival of more exotic cuisines and culminating in the eventual onset of foods from all over the world.

This culinary globalization has indeed stimulated taste buds, but it has brought with it a bit of confusion in the English kitchen, where there was never a particular predisposition towards highly complicated dishes in the first place. In an attempt to adapt itself to new fashions and trends, the food industry has gathered and mixed all manner of aromas and ingredients, producing a little bit of everything in economy packages. The result has often been a final product which displays a rather confused blend of tastes, rather tastelessly echoing the English shoppers' gastronomic experiences abroad.

As far as Italy is concerned, today it is automatically associated with outrageous ragu Bolognese, or any of the wide range of ready-made pasta sauces, or the unrecognizably disfigured "traditional" pizza, a bemusing mass of doubtful taste to stick in the oven for ten minutes from frozen which would be certain to draw a horrified "mamma mia" in Bologna, Genoa or Naples. On the drinking side, apart from several well-known labels displaying astronomical prices, the many cheap bottles of commercial wine fail to do any justice to the Italian regions which proudly claim their origins, explaining the blossoming business of American or Australian wines.

Safeway's initiative may be the right occasion for millions of British shoppers to finally get a taste for an authentic Apulian scamorza or Sardinian orecchiette. The idea is to have Italian products dominating on the shelves and in colourful stalls outside the supermarkets with a sample available for tasting in the supermarket's cafes, complete with Italian music and flags. This in turn could be an occasion for re-launching everything "made in Italy", through the participation of a wide range of Italian companies and labels, from high fashion to furniture, which have been invited to take part in the initiative: Alitalia would promote flights to Italy, Enit would boost tourism, Fiat and Piaggio could exhibit their latest vehicles, and so on.

Viva Italia Safeway could in this manner serve as a successful run-up to Pavarotti's concert finale in Hyde Park, for which tickets are available directly from the supermarkets and have almost run out.

"I wish to involve every single Safeway sales outlet to make this a true Italian celebration never before seen in England", Safeway's Argentine Chief Executive Criado-Perez declares. "The Italian product will benefit from a great commercial impulse, just as our supermarkets will benefit from a qualitative boost, which we intend to maintain. The marketing program also includes 4 copies of the Safeway magazine to be entirely devoted to Italy in all its tourist, artistic, cultural and gastronomic aspects, millions of discount vouchers, sustained publicity in the newspapers, magazines and TV, leaflets to be distributed door-to-door, and even the live making of pasta and pizza in the more important Safeway centres by specialized chefs and wine-tasting during evenings with special events, which could range from fashion shows to art exhibits".

So basically, the supermarket chain which has until now increased the sale of Italian products in Britain by 30% is aiming to increase this business further, beyond its current £40 million yearly profits. It is a commercial objective of mutual interest for Safeway and the Italian companies invited to participate - an Italian tour with a shopping trolley full of quality goods.

Author: Margherita Calderoni