THE TRADEMARK IS A COCKADE: A YELLOW PROVOLA ON GREEN BACKGROUND

There is also another story I would like to tell you. It is the story of a Consortium that protects and of the trademark that approves the product. It is first of all the story of the men and of their aim of identifying themselves in the name of a cheese. The cheese, it is easily understood, is the Provolone Valpadana. The men are those that lead the dairies where it was and it is still produced and the breeders who from their cattle dungs got and still get the necessary milk.

As it happens for all the real, true, stories, it was not a walkover to find an agreement because obviously it is not easy at all when too many people were involved. But the Provolone Valpadana staff, sure of the fact that only together it is possible to make it, succeded in it and even anticipating many other producers of cheeses.

This strong belief already esisted when, in the mid fifties, the Provolone (still called in this way before) was qualified as “typical cheese”. At that time, the problem of the area of production was very much discussed (potentially it corresponded to the whole of Italy, but in reality the most important producers concentrated in between Lombardy, Emilia and Veneto), and also the so called production “polyformism” of the Provolone was a controversial matter, in fact the Provolone can be shaped in various ways (spherical form, pear-form, mandarin-form, cylindrical form, pancetta and salame form) and can have a number of different sizes and dimensions (from just a few hectograms to over 100 kilos): they spoke about many “provoloni”.

For the first time, in 1975, the producers of the Po area decided to become member and gather in a unique body, a Consortium, that had to serve as a reference point for all of them, that is to say, the body had to establish how the Provolone had to be necessarily produced (production criteria), what to do to promote it (market promotion), what kind of studies were necessary in order to produce a healthy and good cheese (studies, research and experimentations).

Was it a good choice? Of course the producers of the Provolone was forced to make this choice. That was the only way to achieve these results. Three years later, in 1978, the Consortium was officially charged of taking care of the supervision, that is to say that from that moment on it was the Consortium itself the responsible for the supervision of all the producers that took part in it, but also was responsible for the non-member companies that had to comply with the rules of the game and had to produce the Provolone following the agreed standards.

In that year, it also received a contribution from the former CEE for “advertising and promotion expenses”. A real party, of course, but also a helping- hand to start another difficult phase, that is the advertising of the Provolone. This was another milestone, still considering that the coexistence of the several members must have not been that easy, because the Consortium gathered both the manufacturers and the responsible of the cooperatives (both of them produced the Provolone, the first ones as private whereas the others as associates).

And they did not surrender, on the contrary, they did their best until they won another prize: in 1993 the designation of origin “Provolone Valpadana” was recognized and, even greater gratification, on the 21st June 1996 the European Union approved the Designation of Protected Origin, the coveted P.D.O.

For the former Consortium for the Protection of the Provolone Valpadana cheese was beginning another difficult step: the protection of the product and its defence against imitations, frauds, and fakes. From that moment on nothing that could resemble to the Provolone could take the place of the real Provolone. And as a guarantee of the authenticity for the Provolone Valpadana P.D.O. a cockade with the trademark of the Consortium for the protection: on the background a yellow provola and the number of the dairy where it has been produced.

From 2002 also the name of the Consortium changed: it simply became Consorzio Tutela Provolone Valpadana (Consortium for the Protection of the Provolone Valpadana) with new and qualifying functions to improve and protect the cheese. In other words, a licence more to protect and defend with drawn sword the Provolone Valpadana and its characteristics. And the green and yellow cockade always as a guarantee. This cockade with the trademark Provolone Valpadana is affixed to the rope that sustains the form, but the logo is visible on all the packagings. Absolutely a guarantee, dear reader and consumer.