On 10 December 2025, UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee on the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage inscribed Italian cuisine on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This decision marks the first time an entire national cuisine, as a comprehensive cultural system, has received this designation. Rather than focusing on individual dishes or practices, the listing recognises the complex cultural, social and intergenerational dimensions of Italy’s food traditions.
UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage framework is designed to safeguard “living heritage” - practices, knowledge, and expressions that communities actively sustain as part of their cultural identity. In Italy’s case, the recognition extends beyond ingredients and recipes to encompass the rituals, values and social practices embedded in how food is produced, prepared, shared, and transmitted across generations. This includes conviviality around shared meals, seasonal and regional rhythms of cooking, artisanal food production, and long-standing traditions of inter-generational learning and community-focused food culture.
UNESCO’s reasoning explicitly emphasises the connections between culinary practice and land, labour and economic life. The nomination framed Italian cuisine as a cultural system rooted in care, community, seasonal rhythms, biodiversity, artisanal knowledge, and the transmission of culinary skill over time.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni underscored this broader interpretation upon the announcement, saying that Italian cuisine is “not just food or a collection of recipes. It is so much more: it is culture, tradition, work, and wealth.”
International reporting on the recognition has framed it as a historical milestone. Although the recognition undoubtedly carries symbolic resonance for Italy, it also reflects a broader human appreciation of food as a cultural and creative practice rather than a purely functional act. Food practices across societies encompass rituals, communal identity and shared meaning and by inscribing Italian cooking as living heritage, UNESCO reinforces this perspective. This legitimises the idea that culinary traditions are cultural artefacts with deep social and cognitive dimensions that influence how people around the world perceive food as cultural and societal indications.
For global markets, including the UK and other key regions, the recognition has several practical and perceptual implications:
Italian cuisine occupies an exceptional position globally, not only for the popularity of its dishes but for the breadth of cultural practices and diversity of regional traditions it encompasses. UNESCO’s designation recognises this mosaic of regional expressions as part of a coherent cultural system that shapes community life and regional identity.
Economic assessments reflect the breadth of this influence. Independent reporting has noted that Italy’s agri-food sector represents a substantial share of global gastronomy markets, with Italian food traditions and products contributing significantly to exports and tourism industries.
For international buyers and supply chain professionals, this underscores a reality where cultural recognition and market demand converge: traditions with heritage value can bolster consumer trust, support premium positioning, and inform strategic sourcing decisions, especially in sectors sensitive to authenticity and traceability.
For Atlante, the UNESCO recognition of Italian cuisine closely reflects its role as a global representative of authentic Italian food culture, for over 30 years. Atlante works to ensure that traditional Italian culinary practices and products are accurately understood and correctly positioned in international markets, working as a bridge between cultures.
One of the core aspects of Atlante’s expertise lies in sourcing products with clearly defined origins, including PDO and IGP certified foods, where geography, production methods and local knowledge are integral to quality and identity. This requires deep familiarity with regional supply chains, artisanal production models and regulatory frameworks, as well as the ability to translate these complexities for international retail partners.
Atlante’s mission is to connect outstanding Italian producers with leading retailers worldwide, acting as a connection between origin and market. Beyond product selection, this involves preserving the cultural context behind food, including regional traditions, seasonal practices and long-established intricacies of industries, while meeting the operational and commercial expectations of global markets.
In this sense, the UNESCO designation reinforces a shared responsibility across the food value chain: to treat Italian food not as a generic category, but as the expression of a living cultural system. Atlante supports this approach by promoting transparency, provenance and cultural literacy, helping partners engage with Italian products in a way that respects their origins and sustains their long-term value.