Cheeses of Italy
The Italian PDO cheeses are deeply rooted in history and in the everyday life of our country. Their fame is strictly linked to the land in which they are born and we owe it to the hard work of our ancestors, who knew a unique and inimitable way to transform milk and how to maintain such a tradition. It is also thanks to them that today these cheeses triumph on the tables of restaurants and in families all over the world.
AFIDOP – The Association of ltalian PDO Cheeses – brings together the main consortia for the protection of Italian PDO cheeses.
The majority of these associations were established at different times – some were born almost eighty years ago – to protect the basic characteristics of these precious products, which are closely linked to their territory of origin. The Associations safeguard the typical aspect and the use of the products’ names, they promote their popularity and they protect production, keeping a watchful eye on quality.
Practically all the regions, traditions and types of cheese are part of AFIDOP: from fresh to mature cheeses, from uncooked to semi-cooked or cooked and smooth textured ones, from cheeses made with cow’s milk to those made with sheep’s, buffalo’s and goat’s milk. From large scale productions, producing more than a million quintals, to smaller scale ones that make less than a few hundred. As you can see it is so vastly different and so widely represented that it can deliver a message to the world of a
quality that is second to no one.