Italian Food Quality

Italian food quality is the basis of its goodness. Nowadays it's important to preserve quality standards to avoid quality loss while searching convenience in international markets. The European Union decided to create the quality brands to protect the raw material and original process concerning some typical products.

European Quality Brands

The European Union created the quality brands PDO (Protected designation of origin) and PGI (Protected Geographical Indication). The PDO protects both the origin of the raw material and the typical production process. The PGI protects the typical process, allowing the raw material to come from other parts.

Who knows the brands?

The weakness of this initiative is the low knowledge people have about these brands. They are created to foster the typical products, benefiting the customers, as they distinguish the real typical products from the common ones that are maybe sold as an equal quality product. Some researches showed that the number of people who knows about these brands is still a minor part of the customers.

Most known brands

Most of the customers know Parmesan as a type of Italian cheese. How many of these customers know about the sentence from European Union stating that Parmesan is the cheese produced in a determined region of Italy, under the rules of Parmigiana Reggiano consortium? Only this cheese can be called Parmigiana or Parmesan. The other ones, produced all around the world (this sentence regarded a German cheese) cannot use this name. If they do so, they are doing it improperly.

But how a common customer can notice this difference? Through the quality brands. It’s a powerful tool for quality food lovers. A unique product has no need of a quality brand. Some special brands of balsamic vinegar are sold by more than 2000 US dollars per litre. These are unique products by themselves, as a Ferrari is between machines. But regarding the good products that can be confused with similar in appearance, the quality brand is necessary and allows the gourmets to buy and enjoy special food that continue to be produced as they used to be, respecting the local traditions and allowing us to live in a global world that preserve the differences cultures need to keep the history alive.