HALF THE ITALIANS ARE FASCINATED BY EXOTIC FLAVORS: A SURVEY CONDUCTED BY THE MORESSA FOUNDATION REVEALS CHINESE RESTAURANTS ARE THE MOST POPULAR

Half the Italian population has eaten at least once in ethnic restaurants, especially Chinese. A third buys typical foreign products in supermarkets and makes ethnic food recipes at home. However, they do not shop in grocery stores run by foreigners very much. Here are the results of a survey conducted on a sample of 1,000 Italians in July, by the Leone Moressa Foundation of Venice, which also revealed that in Italy out of 100 employees in the catering business, about nine are foreigners.

Young people are most interested in ethnic cuisine. They are changing their traditional eating habits and including kebabs. More people In the North eat in ethnic restaurants. In Central Italy they are more interested in buying products from foreign countries. Businesses run by foreigners in this field, are: Milan (17.5%), Prato (15.8%) and Trieste (15.1%). In the north Chinese is most popular while in the South, mainly German and Swiss. 19% of Italians shop in ethnic stores at least once a month, 30.1% two or three times a year, while 51% rarely. The Chinese restaurant is top (40.4%), followed by Japanese (16.2%) and Mexican (15.1%). Young people between 18 and 34 go to ethnic restaurants more frequently: 64.2% have experienced foreign cuisine at least once. Analyzing the subsequent age groups the percentage drops to 47.5 % for 35-54 year olds and 45% for those over 54. Moreover, residents in the North and the Center tend to go to ethnic restaurants more often than those who live in Southern Italy.

Italians shop in local ethnic stores less frequently. Just 21.4% said they made purchases at these stores and the frequency remains low: in fact only 14.1% of them said they go at least once a week, while 64.1% not even once a year.

Italians have little confidence in these stores, however: 61.8% say they are not reliable, mainly because of poor quality (66.3%); because they are not appealing (22.1%) and because, finally, mostly foreigners shop in them (11.5%). Italians do purchase foreign products in conventional supermarkets. In this case, 40.7% say they consume ethnic products at least once a month and 26.4% at least once a year. The population most interested in purchases are between 33 and 54 (41.6%) and reside in the central areas of Italy (36.8%).
They use these products for the preparation of ethnic recipes: 27.3% said they prepare foreign dishes a few times a year, while 7.3% do so more often. Most Italians say they still have never prepared any food of foreign origin. Kebabs are slowly beginning to be eaten (38%), more frequently among young people (49.2%) and in the North (43.6%).