Supermarket pasta is a scam, says Antonio Carluccio: Chef calls for shops to stop 'conning' customers into paying extra for poor quality Italian food

• Antonio Carluccio hits out at supermarkets for duping customers over Italian food
• Veteran chef claims supermarkets are being run by 'clueless accountants'
• Reveals he ended collaboration with major food supplier after being told improved lasagna cost too much
  

By LAURA COX FOR THE DAILY MAIL

Published: 20:25 EST, 27 June 2014 | Updated: 07:32 EST, 28 June 2014

Antonio Carluccio, pictured, has hit out at supermarkets for 'duping customers

For many people it is an everyday staple at family mealtimes: a packet of pasta and a jar of tomato sauce bought from a supermarket.

But off-the-shelf Italian food is a ‘con’ and a ‘scam’, according to chef Antonio Carluccio. 

Yesterday Carluccio, 77, who is best known for his popular restaurant chain, accused supermarkets of duping customers into paying too much for poor quality products.

He claimed the fresh pasta they sell is packaged in a way that will make it weigh more – and therefore cost more, while ready-to-go sauces are made from mediocre ingredients made flavoursome with too much sugar. 

And he said supermarkets are being run by clueless accountants, who favour cost cutting over quality.

He revealed he ended his collaboration with a major food supplier to chain stores after being told the improved lasagne recipe he had created cost too much - despite being only 10p over the £1 budget set.

And the feisty Italian also scolded those who pour oil into water to stop pasta sticking to the pan: ‘I don’t know which idiot chef came up with that, putting oil in the water.

The only time you ever maybe use oil is when you cook sheets of pasta to make lasagne.’

Cream in pasta dishes also prompts a sour response from Carluccio.

During an interview with the Daily Mail, he said: ‘I don’t believe very much in pre made sauces because you can make one so easily yourself. Quality is paramount to Italian food and you won’t get that from supermarket sauces.

‘Supermarkets have one task, to distribute in great quantities to everybody, it won’t necessarily be good quality. Even when it’s the best – Waitrose or something, it’s never going to be as good as if you make it yourself.’

Asked if it amounted to a scam Carluccio replied: ‘It is a little bit, yes.’

And he said: ‘What the industry offer as a fresh pasta is a bit of a con because they store it in a plastic bag to keep the moisture which means it weighs more. If it was left out it would go drier, but still be fresh, and therefore weigh less. So you would be getting more pasta.’

In Carluccio’s native Italy, fresh pasta is made by the tray-load in specialist shops. And even the pre-made sauces use only the freshest ingredients.

Here in the UK, he claimed, supermarkets bulk buy their ingredients, meaning they are often not gathered at their ripest.

Veteran chef Antonio Carluccio says supermarkets package fresh pasta in a way that will make it weigh more

He said: ‘When you do it yourself you know what you’re putting in it, you know it’s the best. Supermarkets will use tomatoes that aren’t completely ripe so they will add sugar which I would never use. If you use good quality ripe tomatoes, fresh or in a tin, they don’t need any adjustment.’

Carluccio has made only one collaboration with a supermarket chain, when Northern Foods, which produces most of the fresh food in Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose, offered to pay him £30,000 if he could improve its lasagne.

He did and they were happy. But it didn’t last long.

Carluccio said: ‘Three days later they called me and said I’m sorry we are going back to the old recipe, because it cost £1.10 instead of £1. I was furious. They couldn’t allow a 10% increase on the cost for a much, much improved lasagne, using much better ingredients.

They would rather use the cheaper one, the bad one. I have abandoned the idea of collaborating with a supermarket again. For me supermarkets represent mediocrity, never really good food, even in the higher end places.’

Carluccio, who has written 17 books about Italian food, opened his first food shop with his wife in 1991.

Eight years later the first Carluccio’s Café popped up and the chef now has 70 UK restaurants, as well as franchises in Ireland and Dubai.

In 2011 he and fellow chef Gennaro Contaldo travelled around Italy for a BBC series called Two Greedy Italians. And his latest cookbook, Antonio Carluccio’s Pasta, is now on sale.