Regional Loyalty in the Cinque Terre

The next leg of our journey brought us to the Cinque Terre, a region once known for its agriculture but now little more than a tourist destination, a spectacle of what it once was. Still, in the small communities that remain here, the preservation of local culture is invaluable. For if it is not continued by the locals, it will be lost entirely. This has spawned the resurgence of agriculture with a focus on keeping the produce in the community. The Italians coined the term “slow food,” a response to the American fast food industry and its definite antonym. Where fast food is all about getting food to people in the quickest and cheapest way possible (even if that means the goods are travelling hundreds of miles before reaching their destination), slow food is all about local ingredients, healthy recipes, and the experience of meals.

The article I was assigned for this portion of the trip was a study conducted in three communities in Italy on how the region of origin and PDO labels (a certification system used by the EU) affect their product purchases. The authors wanted to know if these factors directly (rather than indirectly) affected consumers’ purchases: if, for example, a consumer purchased a Florida orange simply because it came from Florida and wanted to support Florida’s agriculture. The researchers asked just over 100 individuals in shopping malls about their preferences between 22 different Italian olive oils, and found no direct correlation between region of origin and consumer preference. I wonder if they had chosen to conduct their study in the Cinque Terre if they would have gotten different results than they received in Rome. This community values their local produce so highly, I would imagine that discovering an orange came from down the street would be a valuable enough asset for them to purchase it on that information alone. Even after only spending such a short time here I have seen firsthand the value they place on supporting their region, and I think that that would directly affect their product purchases.