I have noticed more pasta on supermarket shelves from Italy being sold as a fresh product when it is shipped here frozen and then thawed out and date stamped as if it’s fresh. The RANA brand even says on the front Italy’s number1 fresh pasta. I think this is misleading as the product could be a 12 months old, who would know, they should alert consumers that it is not a fresh pasta.
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Interesting and worthwhile pickup.
Are we back to the Woolies ‘fresh’ in ‘the fresh food people’ sense.
‘ fresh ‘ describes how they imagine it to look and taste? It might also suggest ‘unspoiled’ or has not gone off!
It is nothing to do with the genuine age of the product or journey to the customer.
To be truthful the product could boldly display above all else something similar to ‘Imported frozen product of Italy, thawed for you convenience’.
P.s.
Unfortunately we are still suffering from the alternate use of a common English word that has multiple meanings. And a deficient level of consumer protection.
‘Buyer Beware’. Who dares to overturn the wisdom of centuries of English legal tradition? What next, people will be asking for universal suffrage and votes for women? How else is a shop keeper to make a legally dishonest living?
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And potentially within the optimum eatting period, that being from the day of manufacture/production/picking to its best before/use by date.
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Mark that is correct, if it said Thawed for your convenience I would ok with it but it is a charade.
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Fresh as opposed to Dry Pasta?
Fresh pasta used to be made at home, or bought at a ‘Fresh Pasta’ shop, and cooked soon after. Because of the eggs and water content, it does not keep well.
With imported foods now, who knows how long ago it has been made!
But don’t we also buy ‘fresh chickens’ which have been just defrosted, and, likewise, fish and possibly meat, ( And, horror, some time ago we found out of fresh bread coming frozen from overseas).
It’s getting ever harder to know what we are eating!
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I checked the product “Rana Pumpkin & Onion Ravioli 325g” on their website (Italy) and it says “not suitable for freezing”, “use within 3 days of opening”. Both Coles & Woollies say it is a Product of Italy. The packaging says “Italy’s No.1 fresh pasta*” I couldn’t see the back of the packet to see what the * refers to. Wikipedia notes there are other factories outside of Italy.
I read a few articles on long-life fresh packaged pasta and it is possible to package it safely for 40 days or more, so provided the trip from Italy was quick, refrigerated, and distribution in Australia timely, then it may not need any further preservation.
How do you know the product has been frozen and then thawed?
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You beat me to mentioning that one. I think it was Coles and the bread was imported in some sort of semi-finished state, just the baking was completed here, if my memory serves me.
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That is correct. It was produced in Ireland and the baking was finished instore at Coles supermarkets.
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We don’t have any Rana pasta in the fridge at the moment to check but I am sure that there is no mention of the product having been frozen on the packaging.
My impression of the term “fresh” in relation to their pasta was to indicate that it was undried pasta in comparison to the more common dried pasta.
In any case, it is the most delicious filled pasta we have ever tried as per my previous post below.
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Glad the fresh bread incident is remembered. I’ll be sure to pass this info on to my colleagues in investigations 
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RANA sells it’s pasta in the fresh pasta section with ‘Italy’s No1 Fresh Pasta’ stated on the front. It is deceptive, it could be already 12 months old.
Thaw back pasta or bread or cakes should be called out for what they are.
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The term ‘Fresh’ applied to pasta means a method of making pasta, as opposed to ‘Dried’ pasta like the spaghetti we all know.
It has eggs, more water, cooks sooner, than the other.
I agree that the term can be misleading to most people, and I hate to think what ingredients are added to it to make it last a long time even with freezing!
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Hi Brendan, check out The Australian Magazine this weekend, this topic is about to get bigger. I think Choice should have a position on it.
Fresh/Frozen, Thaw-back.
It’s misleading like Michel’s Patisserie and the Coles Fresh bread.
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Hi Gaby,
I agree that Dry is different from Fresh, but if you freeze fresh is it still fresh?
Is frozen fish fresh?
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It hopefully was fresh when frozen.
The same might be said of the pasta?
Does a frozen whole fish in thawing resemble exactly the fish before? No! The eyes will not be clear for one, and it will not smell or even feel exactly the same?
As for the pasta, it exceeds my experience.
I now read ‘fresh’ on any food product as no longer meaning ‘new’. The Macquarie Dictionary might need to revise it’s description to more closely reflect common supermarket usage? It is an imaginary implied property of supermarket food products, derived from an old English word that once described a product just caught, picked or made.
While not authoritative, most web sites only refer to fresh or dry pasta, and only very few include fresh, dry, and frozen. If ‘fresh’ only differentiates from ‘dry’ as ‘industry jargon’ maybe it needs a ‘thawed for your convenience’ sticker like most fish in the grocers.
To change it for us? Port -> Tawney, Champaign -> Sparking XXX so it can be done.
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Irrespective of whether Rana pasta has been frozen or not, it does not detract from the fact that it is absolutely delicious
I bought another 2 packs of their Four Cheese Ravioli and another 2 tubs of their Parmigiano Reggiano sauce on special at Coles yesterday and had some for dinner tonight.
The local fresh pastas could not hold a candle up to it, let alone compete with the taste and texture.
I would be more than happy to actually buy it frozen if that is how it arrives in Australia.
I am just as passionate as anybody else in supporting Australian products as long as their quality is in the ballpark but in this case, they are not.
