Provolone Valpadana

SERVICES

The task of the Consortium is offering services aimed at the protection, supervision and improvement of the production and at the commerce of the Provolone Valpadana. It supplies its own services to the Partners and to Private Companies, Public Bodies, Private Bodies that may require it.

In the details, the services offered by the Consortium are the following:

Stockpile Management;

Assistance to the Partners: through conformity audits carried out on the Provolone Valpadana (on the product and on the production process) and technical, legal and organizational assistance;

Supervision activity as regards to AGEA, the Agency for Agricultural Subsidies – Indigents, authorization issuing for the prepackaging of the Provolone Valpadana cheese.

Research and development;;

Organization of the Training activity for the partners;;

Provolone Valpadana cheese promotion;;

The Consortium for the Protection of Provolone Valpadana pointed out and described in relevant Management Manuals the variables that needs to be monitored, controlled and verified in order to guarantee that the supplied services are in compliance with the specifications. The specifications regarding the supply of the different services have been defined and approved by the Board.

Stockpile Management

The Consortium manages the stockpile procedure and the following release in collaboration with the Public Bodies.

The intervention of the Consortium begins with the management of the stockpile requests of the Provolone Valpadana and ends with the insertion of the release of the stockpiled lots.

Periodically, the stockpiling companies, according their company needs, give information to the Consortium about the typology and the quantities of product that they intend to stockpile. The stockpiling activities at the stockpiling company are carried out by the Technician appointed by the Consortium together with an official of the Agriculture Provincial Service.

Both the stockpile and the release operations are recorded

Assistance to the partners

The Consortium carries out the assistance as regards to matters related to the Provolone Valpadana production and its commercialization: particularly the collaboration concerns:

- technical assistance;

- legal assistance;

All the requests for assitance are recorded on relevant documentation; they are submitted to the attention of different responsibles, according to the kind of assistance needed, and it takes care of fulfilling the requests. The Consortium carries out, on specific request, controls on the Provolone Valpadan Producers in order to ascertain the conformity of the process and of the product to the requirements provided for by the Disciplinare della DOP Formaggio "Provolone Valpadana", Specifications of the PDO “Provolone Valpadana” cheese.

The control activities consist in:

- inspection activity carried out at the place of work of the Provolone Valpadana Producers;

- test activities carried out on the finished product. This activity establishes the sampling and the following necessary transmission to the analysis laboratory.

Supervision Activity

The supervision activities carried out by the Consortium are related to:
-   authorization issuing for the pre-packaging of the Provolone Valpadana;
-   technical/ operational support to AGEA for the Provolone Valpadana location, pre-packaging and distribution related operations. (AGEA/ Indigents);
-    product conformity audit at the point of sale.

This services are supplied by the Consortium following the (written or oral) requests presented by the Customers of the Consortium itself. At the end of the audit, the technicians in charge write special reports to certify the results of the carried out activity.

Research and Development

The Consortium realizes projects of Research and Development At this purpose it also:

- detects and registers the basic requirements: suggestions, needs of the producers of Provolone Valpadana and/or legislative needs;

- identifies and list in sequence the different phases and/or project activities that have to be carried out and establishes the responsibilities for their execution;

- gives the necessary resources both for the planning and the execution of the projects of Research and Development;

- chooses the teams and the way in which they have to interact during the planning process;

- defines the modality and the means for documenting the planning process in the different phases and/or activities;

- detects the procedures in order to carry out and keep under control the execution of the Research and Development projects;

- identifies the responsibles, the timing and the necessary means in order to proceed to the review, audit and validation of the planning results.

Some projects carried out by the Consortium:
1- the preparation of a system aimed at the control of the appearance of moulds on the surface;
2- qualitative characteristics of the rennet and its organoleptic influence on the Provolone Valpadana;
3- the disuse of the additive E239;
4- experimental curling of the PDO Provolone Valpadana at a pilot dairy;
5- survey for the characterization of the P.D.O. and P.G.I. (Protected Geographical Indication) Lombard products aimed at inhencing the eligibility and the peculiarity of the products through analytic assessment and sensory analysis;
6- optimization and characterization of Provolone Valpadana through innovative technological systems in order to determine a methodical change for the molecular characterization;
7- drawing-up of a “Manual for the correct operational procedure for the production and sale of the Provolone Valpadana”.

Organization of Training Activity for the partners

The Consortium through:

- its own protection activity;

- the periodical contacts with the producers;

- the problems highlighted by the assistance activity;

- external relations,

gathers the training needs of its own Customers. After this collection, the training subjects are drafted and, if necessary, the planning and the execution of the training activities are delegated to external Bodies.

Promotion of Provolone Valpadana cheese

Thanks to this service the Consortium for the Protection of the Provolone Valpadana promotes, through the press, the television, the radio, fair exhibitions, the image of the P.D.O. of the Provolone Valpadana, finding not only new markets but also suggesting useful solutions to each company for enhancing the value of the product.

At this purpose, surveys regarding the market, the repositioning of Provolone Valpadana and the way of presentation had been carried out in the past.