Year 2023 is a very significant milestone for the Parma Ham Consortium: it marks 60 years since its founding.

It was 4 p.m. on Thursday, April 18, 1963, when, at the Parma Chamber of Commerce, 23 producers formed the Parma Ham Consortium on a private and voluntary basis and approved its bylaws, united by the firm conviction that working together would make it possible  to achieve a more effective safeguarding and enhancement of their special product, one with an inseparable tie to a small territory in the province of Parma.

Their pride in a unique all-Italian excellence, the result of know-how handed down from generation to generation and of a strong bond to the  geographical area, made  them even the more convinced of the need to defend and preserve the traditional production method, identifying the ducal crown branded on the ham as a guarantee of authenticity. Upon this principle they founded an association which would in time become an international benchmark in the field of protecting GI products.

Thus, Parma Ham, already rooted in millennia-old history, well anchored in the gastronomic tradition of  our country, began  a journey marked by some significant stages: in 1970 the enactment of the law containing the “Norms Concerning the Protection of the Denomination of Origin of Parma Ham,” which gave producers the tools to fight fraud and unfair competition (amended in 1990 with an updated version); in 1978 the public mandate given by the competent Ministries to the Consortium to supervise compliance with the protection regulations; on June 12, 1996, the registration by the European Union of the protected designation of origin (PDO) “Prosciutto di Parma,” which was aimed at EU protection of the product, an essential element in the context of the constant expansion of foreign target markets.

There are currently 134 companies, each of which expresses its uniqueness and raison d’être that distinguishes it in the product, in full compliance with the production rules. In short, we are witnessing a world in constant change, in which the mission of the Consortium to join the forces of individuals, channeling their resources to the benefit of the product, which has become the best known brand of delicatessen in the world, is even more decisive.

“Sixty years later, the operation carried out by that group of 23 Parma Ham producers has not lost the exceptional and innovative character that marked it from the beginning; on the contrary, in a deeply transformed context, the sharp-minded  and farsighted choice to get together to defend and promote the product’s uniqueness is still one hundred percent relevant and gives us the responsibility to protect the future of the generations who will be reaping our legacy “, comments Alessandro Utini, President of the Consortium.