The Central Inspectorate for the Protection of Quality and Repression of Fraud (ICQRF) of agri-food products of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry (Masaf) has renewed the authorisation , with Ministerial Decree, for CSQA to carry out checks for the Designation of Protected Origin Provolone Valpadana for the next three years.The Provolone Valpadana Protection Consortium brings together 11 companies , with 683 operators , who produce 2 million 800 thousand quintals of milk , 30% of which is transformed into 7 thousand tonnes of protected product per year.
Provolone Valpadana cheese was born in the Po Valley towards the second half of the 19th century from the happy union between the dairy culture of "paste filata", coming from southern Italy, and the dairy vocation of the area.
The history of Provolone Valpadana continues in 1861, when the unification of Italy made it possible to overcome the barriers between the different areas of the peninsula and, therefore, the settlement of entrepreneurs from the south, who had moved to the provinces of Piacenza, Cremona and Brescia its production activities.
The name “Provolone” appears in literature for the first time in 1871, in the “Canevazzi-Mancini Agriculture Vocabulary” (Cappelli, 1871). Thus, “Provolone” means a large provolone. A completely original cheese, distinguishable from other stretched curds widespread in southern Italy as it is large in size, capable of maturing for a long time, without drying out excessively and therefore without becoming a grating cheese.
Since 1996, Provolone Valpadana has been a PDO product.
"We are committed - declares Giovanni Guarneri, president of the Consorzio Tutela Provolone Valpadana , "in strengthening and developing the potential that the PDO brand has in terms of guaranteeing the customer.
On the national market, an ever-increasing number of distributors are requesting ProvoloneValpadana DOP for their branded products because they find guarantees and continuity regarding the origin of the milk, the control of the production process and the maturing times as well as the rigorous control of the packaging process. This guarantees great qualitative consistency.
On the foreign market , which is giving us significant satisfaction, we are committed to promoting and protecting the denomination."
Research conducted annually by the Provolone Valpadana Protection Consortium confirms the excellent results in terms of production and exports , with an increase of over 15%. The main export countries remain Spain, France, Australia and Canada.
But the news mainly concerns the sales of Provolone Valpadana PDO in the Far Eastern countries and in Oceania where they have doubled: in China with a +318% in volume, in Japan with a +97.4%.
Australia and New Zealand also confirmed themselves as reliable and growing markets with +48.1%.