Sustainable future, social business and tortellini

I want to tell you a short story about sustainable future, social business and tortellini. I went with my wife to buy some food at a local food shop where we bought a pack of a new sort of tortellini (the right name would be “girasoli”) filled with ricotta cheese and pepperoni. We both found it was a “very interesting” combination, the price was affordable, we already trusted the producer in the past - the biggest italian producer of “pasta fresca” (fresh made pasta) - so we verified the expiration date and we decided to buy it.

Why did I tell you all this? Because when we went back home and we begin to cook we realized that we made a mistake: among the ingredients we found Rapeseed Oil and Palm Oil. Now on the base of this information, let me share my considerations. Watch the link to the label of the product.

What I found on Wikipedia about Rapeseed Oil does not need any further comment: “It can contain up to 45% erucic acid, a known toxin. Food grade rapeseed oil is limited by government regulation to a maximum of 2% erucic acid by weight in the USA and 5% in the EU, with special regulations for infant food.”

I did the same very basic search for the Palm Oil and here is what you can find on Wikipedia: “Palm oil producers have been accused of various human-rights violations, from low pay and poor working conditions to theft of land and murder. Palm oil production has been documented as a cause of substantial and often irreversible damage to the natural environment. Its impacts include: deforestation, habitat loss of critically endangered species such as the Orangutan (ORANGUTAN OUTREACH), the Sumatran Tiger and a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions. On top of all that, the pollution is exacerbated because many rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia lie atop peat bogs that store great quantities of carbon that are released when the forests are cut down and the bogs drained to make way for plantations.”

There are at least two lessons learned that I’d like to share. The first is about the trust that the producer has lost. It’s a fact that I refuse to buy their products until they will completely band Rapeseed Oil and Palm Oil. And of course I will not miss a single opportunity to spread the word on the web and to convince as many consumers as possible to do the same: not to buy from this producer any food containing ingredients which are not completely safe for our health and that are dangerous for the ecosystem.
Lesson number two is about the use of social business. Even thoug this company pretends to have an image of caring about health and environment, it clearly shows how they are totally missing the point. People, customers, users, consumers today don’t accept to be teased and refuse to swallow unidirectional marketing messages, they want to be listened and they pretend respect for the environment: in one word they want to build transparent and authentic relations. Exactly the opposite of what this company is doing.

Before concluding there is a question which remains unanswered. On the label of the package I bought (which can be seen below) the very famous official brand does not appear, but you can read the company name and address: is this only a very peculiar coincidence or is it because of the ingredients?

I tried to tell a small story of ordinary life to send across a very simple message: I believe that committing to realize, to fulfill, to become, to inspire, to accomplish something we deeply care for us, for our loved ones and for the future generations is the highest exercise of freedom and civilization we could do. If we want to live a meaningful life, we just need to start from the “apparently smallest” decisions we all take in our daily life.