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January 2014 Yuck Design Award : fake Italian brands

This month, I decided to assign the Yuck Design Award not a to product but to a trend. I’m Italian, but having lived and worked in five other countries, I am always amazed at how many products and brands sometimes pretend to be Italian. I remember working, when I was a student, at a restaurant in Denver Colorado, United States, called Fratelli’s. The restaurant served a variety of Italian dishes, but nobody was Italian in its the staff.

Even in France, the term “sandwichs” (correct English would be sandwiches) is now giving way to ” paninni “, also often written “pannini” sometimes correct, sometimes erroneous versions of the Italian ” panini “.

Pizza and pasta are among the world’s most famous words, yet their popularity does not make a single penny for Italians, unlike champagne and Coca- Cola who bring billions to France and USA.

I find it quite normal, albeit a little grotesque, sticking an Italian name to products originally designed in Italy but manufactured in another country. That is why this habit’s worth the Yuck Design Award . This is the case, for example, of the popular (in Europe) discount Lidl, which offers products with brand names that seem quite Italian, like mozzarella Lovilio, which was produced in Germany, or pasta Combino, which have also excellent value for money. The image below is an example of “Italian” brands by Lidl:

fake Italian brands

fake Italian brands

 

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