Italy’s Food Fraud Inspectorate Seized €47.8 Million in Goods in 2025

Italy’s food fraud inspectorate carried out nearly 500 seizures worth more than €47.8 million in 2025, according to a new activity report presented at the Agriculture Ministry, offering a broad picture of tighter enforcement across the country’s farm and food supply chain and a notable focus on regulated wine production.

The report from the Central Inspectorate for Quality Protection and Fraud Repression of Agri-food Products, known as Icqrf, said the agency conducted 55,000 checks across the agri-food chain last year. It also recorded 5,559 administrative violations, 3,411 formal warnings and 132 crime reports sent to judicial authorities.

The figures were presented at Italy’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forests during an event that also marked two anniversaries: 40 years since the inspectorate’s founding in 1986 and 50 years since the reorganization of the agronomists’ and foresters’ professional order.

Francesco Lollobrigida, Italy’s agriculture minister, said at the presentation that inspections had risen by 21% since 2023, both in number and in quality. He said the increase reflected controls that are more capable of identifying systemic weaknesses and serious offenses.

Felice Assenza, head of department at the ministry, said the agri-food sector has become increasingly central to Italy’s economic, social and environmental strategies over recent decades. He said Icqrf had strengthened its role as an advanced system for protection, prevention and control, one that is also recognized at the European level.

The report shows how much of that work now depends on laboratory analysis. Icqrf said it carried out 10,837 analytical checks and 367,039 determinations on a total of 55,314 products. The agency presented those numbers as evidence of the growing role of scientific tools in verifying traceability and authenticity.

A significant share of the work involved certified products. The report said inspectors carried out 6,448 targeted checks on goods with protected geographical status, including DOP and IGP labels. It also reported more than 11,000 checks in the regulated wine sector, underlining how closely Italian authorities are watching compliance in one of the country’s most valuable beverage industries.

That matters beyond wine alone. For producers of alcoholic beverages and other regulated drinks, the scale of inspections suggests a stricter compliance environment, with greater exposure for fraud, labeling problems and other forms of nonconformity if documentation, origin claims or production practices do not meet legal standards.

The report also highlighted a sharp rise in enforcement tied to unfair trading practices. Checks under Italy’s rules against unfair commercial practices increased from 488 in 2023 to 3,536 in 2025. The ministry framed that work as part of a broader effort to protect contract transparency and the economic position of producers, especially smaller businesses.

Mauro Uniformi, president of Conaf, the national council representing agronomists and foresters, said the high quality and production standards reached by Italy’s agri-food chain were made possible by specialized expertise aimed at producing safe food in ways that are economically and socially sustainable.

Taken together, the data point to a year in which Italian authorities expanded oversight not only through field inspections but also through laboratory testing and legal enforcement. For companies operating in protected denominations and regulated beverage categories, especially wine, the report signals that official scrutiny is becoming broader and more intensive across the supply chain.