If there is one name that immediately reminds the general public of Emilia-Romagna, it is certainly that of Parmigiano Reggiano. A PDO product – that is, ‘Protected Designation of Origin’ – that has confirmed staggering numbers for 2023 as well. Let us look at some of them. Production, typical of the land we are talking about, has reached 4.014 million wheels, substantially in line with that of 2022. The distribution within the Region is interesting. Leading the provinces is Parma with 1,350,415 wheels, ahead of Reggio Emilia (1,217,380), “Modena (860,971) Mantua (476,361) and Bologna (95,303). Turnover broke through the wall of 3 billion euro (in 2022 it had stopped just below at 2.9 billion euro) with an increase therefore of 5%. Last year, sales in Italy (+10.9%) and abroad (+5.7%) grew as well. The foreign market reached 43% of the total and experienced significant growth, such as exports to the United States (+7.7%) and Spain (+7.8%). Even resounding was the success in faraway Australia, +21.8%).
The Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium – which defends and promotes the quality of the product in Italy and abroad – celebrates its first ninety years in 2024 and is committed not only to increasing market share, but also to making the remarkable qualities of the cheese better known to the general public. The success of this supply chain was also confirmed by the annual ‘Caseifici Aperti’ event held at the end of April, which registered a surge in public attendance at the more than 52 production sites that opened their doors wide to visitors.