Paris – The recently-awarded certifications see Italy reach a total of 48 cheeses protected by the EU, while France stops at 45. Italy thus becomes the European and the world’s leader in quality dairy production, as confirmed by the recently published Coldiretti analysis. Italy’s PDO cheeses receive approximately half of the milk delivered from Italian farms (45.5% of the 50 million tons of milk produced), for a production close to 500 million kg of PDO cheese per year, almost twice that of France. ISTAT data analyzed by Coldiretti also highlight a 4% increase in Italian PDO cheese exports to France, while a 3% decrease in Italy’s imports of French PDO cheese. (9Colonne)
