With Puzzone di Moena, the DOP, IGP, STG products that CSQA, the leading Italian certification company in the agri-food sector, controls in order to guarantee the quality of 'Made in Italy' and compliance with European regulations rise to 50 .
The first DOP form of Trentino cheese will be awarded tomorrow at CIBUS 2014 by Maurizio Martina, Minister of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies.
CSQA has obtained the authorization to carry out checks for the DOP Puzzone di Moena/Spretz Tzaorì. For a food product to receive the Protected Designation of Origin from the European Union means assuring the consumer that the expectations on its 'value' effectively respond to what is declared in terms of origin, production methodology, specific characteristics of typicality. Furthermore, the DOP also offers guarantees to producers included in a system that provides for homogeneous production and competition conditions, thanks also to the application of transparent control models and procedures, previously validated.
The first form of Puzzone di Moena with the DOP brand will be presented tomorrow in an exclusive preview at CIBUS 2014 and will be awarded at 11.30 by Maurizio Martina, Minister of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies, at the Ministry's stand. The Puzzone di Moena (or Spretz Tzaorì in the Ladin language) obtained, after a long and very articulated process, the DOP-Protected Designation of Origin. This fine cheese, excellence among the dairy products of Trentino, with the official seal of the European Union, rightfully enters the basket of products recognized and protected directly by the EU.
Puzzone di Moena or Spretz Tzaorì is a cheese recognizable by the moist rind covered with a greasy patina, by the particular sharp smell and by the unmistakable flavour. Genuine and intensely aromatic, with a semi-hard and semi-cooked texture with a washed rind, it is produced in the Alpine valleys with the Dolomites as a backdrop, recently recognized as a 'World Heritage Site' by Unesco. In this production area, where the Predazzo-Moena, Val di Fassa, Val di Fiemme and Primiero dairies are located (all associated with the Trentino Formaggi Group), aging takes place for at least 90 days as per the Production Regulations. The peculiarity of its unmistakable flavor is due to the milk obtained from cows that feed on the highest pastures with grass and hay strictly from the Val di Fiemme, Fassa and Primiero-Vanoi areas. Puzzone di Moena DOP is a purely typical and local cheese, available for a national market and which has admirers all over the world, giving prestige to a history made of nature, passion and rigor.
“ With the certification of Puzzone di Moena we have reached an important milestone. – explained Luigino Draws , CSQA President – There are, in fact, 50 DOP, IGP, STG products that we check to offer guarantees to consumers and producers on all the different levels of the production process: origin, provenance of raw materials, location, traditionality. The DOP, in fact, is the brand that European legislation uses to protect traditional productions and enhance the specific characteristics of agri-food products, with the aim of characterizing the product-territory relationship. Italy holds the record for the number of PDOs and PGIs registered, exceeding 20% of the total in the European Union. More than 70,000 farms and almost 6,000 processing companies adhere to these denominations.
A strategic sector therefore able to drag the image of all Italian agri-food production. CSQA's challenge, in fact, is to certify the Italian qualities of the agri-food sector in order to include them in international circuits”.
“After a long bureaucratic process that began in 2003, obtaining the Protected Designation of Origin for the Puzzone di Moena/Spretz Tzaorì cheese - said Franco Morandini, President of the Association for the request for registration of the Protected Designation of Origin for the Puzzone di Moena cheese - is not only a pride for all the breeders and producers of the Fiemme, Fassa and Primiero valleys, but represents a union perfect between mountain livestock, territory and tourism of the entire Trentino system. The desire to hand down and preserve this traditional production, achieved by obtaining the DOP, I believe is the right recognition to a mountain livestock that daily faces permanent natural disadvantages, such as higher production costs than in lowland areas, transport and communication difficulties, fragmentation of farms and morphological nature of the land. Being able to boast of a quality recognized and certified by the CSQA, identifying the origin from a specific area of origin of both the milk and the cheese, should allow the Puzzone di Moena to be appreciated, as well as on the local and national markets, also on the international ones thanks to its strong, genuine and particular flavor that make it unique and unmistakable ".
Parma, 06 May 2014