Protecting the environment and natural food

Italyabroad.com was born in 2003, almost 20 years ago, and I have personally been involved with wine and food since I was a child, my grandparents had vineyards and an olive grove and I used to help them whenever I could during the school terms and “full time” in the summer and how wine is made and food is produced has changed radically during that time. Not just in Italy and not only because of more modern equipment.


Together with producing high quality wine and food, protecting the environment, respecting and taking care of where we live, has become a duty and an obligation for everyone, including wineries and food producers. If 20 years ago, the organic logo was displayed only for commercial reasons, being able to charge more and often hide poorly made products, this time around being organic - whether certified or not - has become part of many producers’ DNA. Wineries and food producers have made of respecting the environment a pillar. There are still plenty for which the emphasis is on profits before anything else, but slowly they are disappearing as long as we, as consumers, stop buying their products. Because of my past, at Italyabroad.com, from day one we always chose small, independent producers respecting the environment as our suppliers.


This change of attitude in many now is because wineries and food producers are run by a new generation, a generation made of people that were able to enjoy the outdoor, that were brought up when the seasons were seasons, that had never seen their vineyards or farm flooded and are trying to do their bit to avoid that the next generations, their children, grandchildren, can enjoy some of things they did and seen. Whilst the generation before them had been warned that things could change but experienced very little of, the new generation has seen it first hand and their choice is made with the heart. The last couple of decades were all about producing as much as possible to increase profits, with the new generations in charge, there has been a massive change. This change is also visible in the quality of their products, being natural is not a choice anymore, at least for our producers.


Our friend and supplier, Vittorio, the last generation of the family butcher Calla based in Calabria. due to the non existence of a natural ham to give his daughter, all the ones on the market had something artificial, decided to make one himself, a 100% natural ham, a ham that has been so successful that we have customers preordering it. All our producers, wineries and food, are like Vittorio, not only they respect and care for the environment because want to leave to the next generations a place where not only is safe to live but a place where they can enjoy the same thing our generation did, but they also want their products to be as natural as possible.


And in a post COVID world, this attention will become even more important. COVID has left a scar on us and whether it came from a bat or not, we are all more concerned about what we eat and were our food comes from. COVID made us realising that we don’t know what is coming our way and the only thing we can do is to be careful in what we eat and as healthy as we can, and what we eat and drink is the main factor behind our being healthy.