An Artificial Intelligence named Nina will uncover fake buffalo mozzarella

The Consortium for the Protection of Buffalo Mozzarella Dop employs artificial intelligence for surveillance against fake mozzarella and to counteract the phenomenon of Italian sounding. This is the first project in Italy implemented by a Consortium, which focuses on AI as an innovative tool for the protection of a Dop product. The initiative was presented to the press at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty, and Forests.

Who is Nina

The project, conceived by the Consortium, was commissioned to the company Farzati Spa, which has developed an artificial intelligence system: a virtual "bodyguard" of buffalo mozzarella Dop called Nina. The name is that of one of the most long-lived and productive buffaloes in the history of the industry. The digital platform Nina is capable of learning and recognizing authenticity patterns of packaging, continuously improving and enhancing its functionalities. It is expected that within a year, Nina will have completed the learning period and will be ready to combat fakes.

How Nina's artificial intelligence works

Do not think of this platform using AI like Chat GPT. Nina operates in a completely different way. By monitoring the web, Nina searches and verifies with scraping techniques all references it encounters about Buffalo Mozzarella Dop; it analyzes them based on learning rules and reports any presence of imitations, counterfeits, evocations, and abuses. Nina checks the packaging of Dop mozzarella, learning to distinguish authentic ones from potential imitations, and does so by improving with experience. By cataloging the 26 thousand different labels and references related to the product, as it records, Nina learns. Soon it will become more and more accurate and will be able to distinguish a fake from an authentic product infallibly. Through seven different algorithms, scanning the packaging, Nina will be able to identify poorly translated text from Italian, assess the validity of the color scale, the font used in the texts, and notice differences in label parameters (authorizations, CE stamps, chamber data, communication parameters, disciplinary data, and all stylistic notes present) comparing them to the authentic version. In the presence of a single dissonant element, Nina will report the inconsistency.
"The project is a model of innovation in the dairy sector," explained Giorgio Ciardella, CTO of Farzati. "Through the use of advanced technologies, this initiative not only protects one of the most representative products of Italian excellence but also establishes new standards for the entire agri-food sector."

Nina adds to the 15 thousand checks per year

"This innovation represents a leap in quality in the surveillance activity on buffalo mozzarella Dop and demonstrates that, if well used, the revolution of artificial intelligence can be of great help in protecting Made in Italy," commented the director of the Consortium, Pier Maria Saccani. In addition to joining the Consortium's surveillance platform in use since 2014, Nina goes further, providing a service to the producing companies, but also protecting the end consumer. In 2023 alone, the Consortium conducted 5,000 verifications, in addition to those carried out by other authorized entities (Local Health Authorities, Carabinieri, Icqrf), for a total of about 15,000 checks per year, making Buffalo Dop one of the most protected products in Europe.

Digital Innovation

It is known that the first historical documents on mozzarella testify how in the 12th century, the Monks of the monastery of San Lorenzo in Capua offered pilgrims the "mozza," also called "provatura," the ancestor of mozzarella. "The goal of our Consortium," concluded President Domenico Raimondo, "is to increasingly enhance the transparency of the sector, focusing on digital innovation. This project adds to the total traceability of the supply chain, which today, starting from a single buffalo mozzarella Dop, allows us to trace back to the batch of milk with which it was produced. The threat of counterfeiting and Italian sounding - calling the product "mozzabella," for example - is always around the corner, especially for those who produce high quality. The better and more loved a product is, the more it is copied. Nina and our inspection teams together work to guarantee the experience of the end consumer."