Burro delle Alpi and Gran Moravia: when the labels talk
The Nutriclips were presented on 8 May in Milan. Innovative information tools for consumers, designed in collaboration with the nutritionist Pier Luigi Rossi..
“Everything we say at this meeting today will be positive. This is a party, a step forward towards tranquillity and a calm attitude towards food.” This is how Roberto Brazzale, CEO of the Brazzale Group, introduced the topic of the meeting held on May 8th at the Circolo della Stampa in Milan entitled: “Butter fights back. The whole truth about its virtues and qualities.” The central theme of the event was the presentation of the Group’s new project: the Nutriclip, innovative talking labels with a multimedia interface, a way to revolutionise consumer information using mobile technology. This is the first presentation by Brazzale, the oldest dairy company in Italy, which will start including this innovation on the packaging of its products in September, starting with Burro delle Alpi and its Gran Moravia cheese.
How do Nutriclips word?
They use QR code technology (available for iPhones, Android and Symbian); simply swipe the smartphone over the code on all Brazzale product packaging to access the short video clips in which Pier Luigi Rossi, a physician specialised in food science explains in a clear, simple and complete manner, the nutritional qualities of the product, its characteristics and benefits to health and metabolism. In addition to Roberto Brazzale, Lucio Lamberti, marketing professor at the Milan Polytechnic School of Management and Pier Luigi Rossi also attended the meeting.
Consumers and the network
Lamberti has the task of illustrating the impact of new technologies on the purchasing decisions of consumers. During his presentation, the Polytechnic professor illustrated some data on how users search for information on the Web. In Italy, for example, according to a research conducted by the Multi-channel Observatory in 2012, 85% of mothers stated that they regularly read consumer reviews on products and services on blogs, forums and online communities. And 38% say they directly participate in these types of discussions. More generally, 8 million Italian consumers admit they change their purchasing decisions based on the information found on social media and over 12 million confess to trusting the social network in purchasing processes (Source: Milan Polytechnic – School of Management & Mimesis, 2012). And it is this growing penetration and use of new technologies that convinced the Brazzale Group to take on this project. “It is expected that by 2015 the number of smartphones in Italy will exceed 50 million. Almost every citizen will have a powerful tool capable of revolutionising their ability to acquire comprehensive information on the product being purchased. It is as if each of us were carrying around an encyclopaedia, a radio and a television all in one in our pocket. When we press the QR code, it suddenly begins to talk about the product we are interested in. An immense potential, which is still incredibly neglected and which we have decided to use to the benefit of consumers and a correct diet,” says Brazzale.
The nutritional tables
Standard nutritional tables often fail to provide all the useful information we really want to know about what we eat. As demonstrated by research carried out on over 100 food bloggers: half of them (48%) would like to have more complete information on the products they buy on a daily basis, to find out more about characteristics, qualities and virtues of the individual foods. “The idea of Nutriclip came to us after the experience we had at Cheese 2011,” says Brazzale. During that event, where we were the main sponsor, we offered the most simple and traditional solution to those visiting our stand: bread, butter and sugar. An incredible experience: the stand was taken by storm and many of them told us how their grandmothers used to prepare this snack for them. So we asked them “Why don’t you do so today?” The answers were always related to calories, cholesterol and so on. That’s when we came up with idea of Nutriclip.” Dr. Rossi went on to comment: “We need to clear the field of what I call diet gossip. Focusing on calories is a thing of the past. You choose whether it’s 18th or 19th century. The nutritional value of a food goes far beyond its individual components.” But do nutritional tables really provide this information? Brazzale continues: “Today the nutritional tables printed on packaging can only contain sterile quantitative and technical information that we force consumers to understand based on who knows what competence. It’s a bit like giving someone who does not read music the score of Beethoven’s quartet: how will they ever understand it without listening to the interpreters who translate all those incomprehensible signs into music? The Nutriclip project was created to give consumers an interpreter that allows them to acquire the knowledge they deem relevant and useful, minced and digested by those who have the ability to serve it in a language they find intelligible and useful. It is not simply a formal progress, but a giant step forward that allows you to give knowledge the attention it deserves and combat the “relativist” and naive DIY science which is constantly generating misinterpretations and misunderstandings. We are delighted that Dr. Rossi decided to back our project with such enthusiasm because we consider him to be the ideal “interpreter” who can give consumers the most accurate information currently available.” To respond to this need Brazzale has studied the new Nutriclip, in collaboration with Pier Luigi Rossi who, encouraged by Manuela Soressi, moderator of the meeting, answered many questions on the benefits of butter and hard cheese for one’s health.
Consumption of butter and hard cheese
“A conscious diet is the best natural medicine to live a long and healthy life. This is why we need to know more about food that enters our body, that affects its physical efficiency and our image. Food is not just calories: we eat all the molecules in the food we ingest. The Nutriclips allow you to read and evaluate the nutritional labels of food in a truly innovative manner. Using this tool, we can inform consumers and guide them towards making healthy decisions that act both as a form of preventive medicine and gastronomic pleasure.” It is therefore no coincidence that the first product which will be available on the new Nutriclip is butter, an essential food in Italian cuisine, but one that for so many years has suffered from false myths, prejudice and inaccurate information.
The multimedia label of origin
The multimedia label of origin
The Nutriclips are just the latest innovation launched by the Brazzale Group over the years aimed at encouraging a dialogue with its consumers based on transparency. In 2012, in fact, the multimedia label of origin was launched for Gran Moravia cheese, the Group’s flagship product, which is used to access a special section of the Brazzale website, to see the places of origin of Gran Moravia, the dairy farms, videos on the cheese manufacturing and processing factories, previously unpublished photographs and dedicated texts.
Alice Realini
