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, by Ministerial Decree, for CSQA to carry out checks for products of Ricciarelli di Siena PGI bakery and pastry shop and Panforte di Siena PGI for the next three years.
Ricciarelli di Siena PGI and Panforte di Siena PGI are representative products of the rich basket of protected products of Tuscany, a region which - exclusively in the food sector - can boast 31 PDO PGI products for an economic value of €178 million generated by work of 11,938 operators (Ismea-Qualivita 2022 Report Data).
Born from the ancient tradition of Siena's confectionery art, Ricciarelli di Siena PGI and Panforte di Siena PGI can today count on a total certified production of 327 tonnes capable of generating over 4.3 million euros in production value . The Panforte di Siena PGI supply chain in fact reaches a production value of 2 million euros resulting from 170 tons of product, while the Ricciarelli di Siena PGI has a production value of 2.3 million euros compared to 157 tons of product certified (Coripanf data).
The Promoting Committee of the “Panforte di Siena” PGI and the Promoting Committee of the “Ricciarelli di Siena” PGI were established respectively on 9 July 2003 and 14 January 2004. Since then the Committees have safeguarded and valorised this excellence with projects in various areas. “The objective – underlines Massimiliano Arnecchi, president of the Committees – is to make people perceive and explain what it means to be a PGI, that is, the link with the territory, the quality, the respect for a specification which indicates only certain types of products to use. Only Panforte di Siena PGI and Ricciarelli di Siena PGI are the true Ricciarelli and Panforte. And only they can call themselves Siena."
The choice to reconfirm CSQA , the leading certification body in Italy in the field of Geographical Indications, is dictated by the great attention to quality, respect for specifications and current level of checks, as stated by president Arnecchi : "Guarantee, valorization of Panforte di Siena PGI and Ricciarelli di Siena PGI are the priorities for us, the important results that have arrived confirm the value of the choice to maintain CSQA as a control body with the certainty that the good path started proceeds with the same attention towards quality".
“Our confirmation as a control body – underlines Pietro Bonato, General Director and CEO of CSQA – is the result of the certification work carried out on the guarantee and valorisation of these confectionery products, an expression of the Sienese land, whose origins date back to the Middle Ages . It is important to remember that in 2010 Ricciarelli di Siena were recognized as the first Italian baked confectionery product worthy of the Protected Geographical Indication (PGI). We are therefore proud to continue on the path undertaken and the renewed trust in CSQA".
Ricciarelli di Siena PGI and Panforte di Siena PGI confirm the value of the portfolio of PDO PGI products certified by CSQA , which currently has 79 Geographical Indications : a fact that underlines the desire to increasingly accompany the development of quality agri-food chains , symbol of Made in Italy and the vocation of the territories .
Source: CSQA Certifications