Recent results supporting the Montasio PDO cheeses labelled “Mountain product” and “Only Italian Simmental breed”

Montasio is one of the most important PDO cheeses in North-East Italy. Despite its mountain ori- gin, it is mainly produced in lowlands. Recently, in order to differentiate mountain products and to link them to the breed more present in the territory, the PDO Montasio specification allows to labell products as ‘Mountain Product’ and ‘Only Italian Simmental breed’. A project is in progress with the aim of assessing the economic and technical frame of a possible production system and studying the range of variability of the product qualitative characteristics. In the first phase of the project, one cheese factory with 20 associated dairy farms and one alpine farm, for a total of 350 Italian Simmental cows, were involved. A survey at farm level provided data useful to support a marketing strategy. A first experimental trial focused on the quality of cheese produced from cows grazing on alpine pasture or kept indoors. A more recent study aimed to define the quality of the Montasio cheese in relation to pasture type and level of supplementation. The results of the project within the framework of the increase of product value will be discussed.