Dec. 31 – For Grana Padano, 2012 is a record year: it achieved the highest production ever recorded, with over 4 million 700 thousand products. These figures confirm Grana Padano DOP as the most consumed product in the world, with an even more important meaning when considering the general national and international economic crisis situation. “It is a record – said Nicola Cesare Baldrighi, president of the Consortium – based on product quality and producers’ reliability. It is a record that holds an even greater value if you think that it came in the year when many of our dairy farms were heavily damaged by the earthquake that struck Emilia and the Mantova region.” If in 2012 in Italy consumption remained virtually stable, at the international level exports went up 7.5% with Germany, USA, Switzerland, Great Britain, and France as main foreign consumers. “‘And all this – says Stefano Berni, director general of the Consortium – regardless of food piracy, which is causing almost irreparable damage to the industry. But we do not lower our guard and we continue to invest large sums, about € 8 million per year, to perform quality checks on our production. My wish for 2013 is that in Europe there will be zero tolerance for counterfeiting products.”
