The Central Inspectorate of Quality Protection and Fraud Repression for Agri-food Products  (ICQRF), part of the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, has approved, today via Ministerial Decree, the new Control Plan for the Prosciutto di Parma production chain.

On 1st January 2020 the provisions of the Plan entered into force and CSQA Certificazioni officially started its control and certification task under the supervision of the Italian Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies (Mipaaf).

This result is very welcome by our producers because it will enable us to further strengthen the Prosciutto di Parma protection system, ensure more transparency towards consumers and offer a better and safer product.  The new plan has indeed the double purpose of intensifying controls along the entire production chain with a special focus on breeding farms and abattoirs, and of improving traceability making it more accurate and objective starting from pig genetics and feeding, down to the finished product.  CSQA has the task of dealing with the certification and control system of our PDO and leading Prosciutto di Parma to a sustainable future for the entire production chain.

Vittorio Capanna, President of the Consortium

One of the most relevant aspects of the new Control Plan is the introduction of modern monitoring instruments and the use of a new IT system that collects, aggregates and organises the data recorded by breeding farms, abattoirs, ham curing plants and slicing facilities for the identification and traceability from the raw material to the finished product.  But there is more. Substantial changes have been introduced also to the management and reporting of pig feeding, transportation procedures, checking of pig weight and identification of the breeding farms of origin, as well as of control procedures in ham curing plants both from a physical and from an organoleptic point of view.

All this adds to the new Ministerial Decree on genetic types, which sets out a specific procedure for the identification of the genetic types complying with the breeding criteria for heavy pigs in line with the proposed changes to the Prosciutto di Parma Production Specifications recently approved by the General Meeting of the members of the Consortium.  The new procedures establish a positive list of the genetic types eligible for the protected circuit and a database of genetic material.  For each boar eligible for the circuit a sample of biologic material, i.e. a DNA sequence, shall be available to carry out paternity tests: a true traceability tool in the breeding phase.

The strategic plan to relaunch the sector, as announced by the Consorzio del Prosciutto di Parma and by its members some months ago, continues and has already led to significant changes.

In these months we have worked hard to keep the promises made, and we are now ready to write a new chapter of our history that is inevitably aimed at improving the quality of Prosciutto di Parma.   The Consortium’s Board of Directors has chosen CSQA Certificazioni as its new control and certification body, a leading company in the industry founded on the culture of product certification and the author of the new control plan that has just been approved by the Ministry; we want to thank CSQA for its contribution to the definition of this decisive control tool.  The procedure for the approval of the new Production Specifications by the competent authorities is instead still in progress. These Specifications will have the purpose of strengthening product identity and distinctiveness over its competitors.

Stefano Fanti, General Manager of the Consortium

The new Production Specifications contain substantial changes that affect all the links of the chain, from breeding farms to ham curing plants, from raw material characteristics to the finished product: pig genetics and feeding, processing method, reduction of salt content, haunch weight and maturation, extension of minimum maturation, analytical parameters for quality assessment, sales methods, pre-sliced product, etc.

Over the last months, CSQA has made its best talents available to support the Consorzio di tutela del Prosciutto di Parma DOP in preparing a control plan in line with the expectations of Authorities and stakeholders. This is a new path to implement, through our consolidated experience, a system of accurate audits to protect players and consumers: a big commitment that substantiates the leading role that our body has achieved in regulated certification in the agri-food sector.

Pietro Bonato, CEO and General Manager of CSQA Certificazioni