Price rise in Italy fueling pasta protest

MILAN, Italy — Be it fettuccine, linguine or spaghetti, Italians will soon be paying up to 20 percent more for their pasta.

Consumer groups are calling for a one-day pasta strike today — not against eating it, but against buying it — to protest the increase. But producers say the strike targeting Italy's national dish is wrongheaded because the price is linked to a global rise in the cost of grain.

The average Italian eats about 62 pounds per year of the staple.

"There is no dish that costs less," said Furio Bragagnolo, vice president of the Italian pasta manufacturers association. "Whoever decides to strike against pasta will spend more on whatever they buy instead. A plate of pasta probably costs less than an apple."

The increase in the price of pasta is being driven by rising wheat prices worldwide, economists and producers say.

The demand for wheat is the result of several trends, chiefly an increasing demand for biofuels, which can be made from wheat, and improved diets in emerging countries where putting more meat on the table is raising the demand for feed for livestock, said Francesco Bertolini, an economist at Milan's Bocconi University.

As a result, wheat stocks worldwide are being depleted and grain prices are soaring. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday that U.S. stockpiles are at their lowest level in 33 years.

Italy produces only about half of the high-protein durum wheat used to make high-quality pasta and bread. The rest is imported from overseas markets, including the United States, Canada and Ukraine.

On the Bologna market, for example, the cost of a pound of durum flour has risen in just the past two months from 16 cents to 28 cents, Bragagnolo said. Durum flour constitutes 70 percent of the cost of producing pasta.

In the Italian supermarket, the rising price will translate by the end of the year into an increase of 16 to 19 cents on a 1-pound package of pasta, which now typically runs from 83 cents to $1.25, Bragagnolo said.

Even at higher prices, Bragagnolo said, the cost of a portion of pasta — about 4 ounces, excluding sauce, of course — will be only about 23 cents.

Those who are most likely to be concerned, producers say, are those on a fixed income, such as 70-year-old Francesca Sanfelice.

"The price increase will affect how I shop. Already, I'm buying less bread, which is helping me lose weight," she said, laughing.

Such worldwide producers as De Cecco — which sells pasta in more than 80 countries — expect little fluctuation in their market overall as a result of the price increases.

"It's a symbolic strike, which will have no impact," said De Cecco's commercial director, Luciano Berardi.