The Asiago Cheese Protection Consortium is an association composed of cheese producers and seasoners, with the task of protecting, promoting, enhancing and informing the consumer in relation to Asiago PDO cheese.
More precisely, the Consortium follows the product from milk collection to production in dairies and during packaging, up to labelling and marketing, verifying compliance with the production specification.
It also promotes and defends the brand and denomination of Asiago PDO in Italy and abroad and disseminates correct information on the specificities of this important Italian agri-food heritage.
The Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) is a guarantee of excellence conferred by the European Union to an agri-food product.
In the case of Asiago cheese, it indicates that its qualities are mainly due to the geographical environment in which it is produced, including natural and human factors, and that its production, processing and preparation takes place exclusively in the area of origin. Only the PDO is real Asiago cheese!
HISTORY OF THE ASIAGO CHEESE PROTECTION CONSORTIUM
The Asiago Cheese Protection Consortium was founded in 1979 on the initiative of the Chamber of Commerce of Vicenza, in order to ensure that only cheese that complies with the production specification is called, recognized and sold as Asiago.
During the previous year Asiago had already been recognized as DOC cheese (denomination of controlled origin) by decree of the President of the Republic.
In 1996 it obtained recognition by the European Union as a PDO cheese. The protected designation of origin is a trademark of legal protection of the name, attributed by the European Union to foods whose peculiar quality characteristics depend essentially or exclusively on the territory in which they were produced.
In 2020 the new Asiago PDO Specification was drawn up.
It is an association made up of cheese producers and seasoners. It has the task of protecting, promoting, enhancing and informing consumers about Asiago PDO cheese.
The Asiago PDO supply chain today includes over a thousand breeding companies, 36 producing companies and 6 maturing companies (data year 2023), which process over 2,200,000 quintals of milk every year.
Currently Asiago cheese is exported to over 50 foreign countries.