Abstract
Parmigiano Reggiano is a hard, granular cheese with a long and natural ripening period whose production can be traced back to 1254 by Benedictine and Cistercians monks in an area on the right bank of the Po river in Norther Italy. In 1955, the Italian legislation awarded the PDO label to the product and established the area of production in the provinces of Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Mantova south of the Po river and Bologna to the left of the Reno river. It is one of the oldest PDO products recognized at the EU level.
Consumer demand and willingness to pay a high price for the inherent quality of the Parmigiano Reggiano cheese has contributed to the vitality, sustainability over the years and growth of the localized agri-food system of the Parmigiano Reggiano.
The sustainability assessment presented in this chapter suggests that the Parmigiano Reggiano performs better, although at times percentage differences are very small, than the reference product for almost all of the indicators employed to investigate sustainability in its economic, environmental and social dimensions. Remarkable positive differences occur for the product price and penetration in international markets, the lower water footprint and better distribution of the bargaining power. Downside of the international success of the Parmigiano Reggiano is the higher food miles it travels and carbon footprint of the product, compared to its reference.
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Notes
- 1.
Art 2 of Feeding Regulation for dairy cows.
- 2.
Art 3 of Feeding Regulation for dairy cows.
- 3.
Art 10 of Feeding Regulation for dairy cows.
- 4.
Art 6 of Feeding Regulation for dairy cows.
- 5.
Parmigiano Reggiano PDO cheese can currently be sold at a minimum of 12 months in four-month age groups: January–April, May – August and September–December.
- 6.
This price is the ‘reference price’ and is fixed by the Chamber of Commerce once most of the year’s output has been sold.
- 7.
The ten largest firms selling Parmigiano Reggiano PDO cover 58% of the market. Five are outside the production area as they are also producers of Grana Padano. These five have a market share of 26%. The CRPA (Centro Ricerche Produzione Animale di Reggio Emilia) estimated that as much as 49% Parmigiano Reggiano PDO was ripened outside the area of origin in 2002.
- 8.
CRPA considered cheeses produced in 2005 and branded in 2006.
- 9.
Market:the market links can be transitory or can persist over time, with repeated transactions; the costs of switching to new partners are low for both parties; modular: suppliers produce to a customer’s specifications and take full responsibilities for the process, the technology and the skills required; relational: there are complex interactions between buyers and sellers, which often create mutual dependence and high levels of asset specificity; captive: small suppliers are transactionally dependent on much larger buyers and they face significant switching costs; hierarchical: characterized by vertical integration.
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Cozzi, E., Donati, M., Mancini, M., Guareschi, M., Veneziani, M. (2019). PDO Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese in Italy. In: Arfini, F., Bellassen, V. (eds) Sustainability of European Food Quality Schemes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27508-2_22
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