A digital label will make Parmigiano Reggiano more traceable

The initiative of the Parmigiano Consortium to protect the PDO product

Making the product even more traceable and safe: this is the goal of the new digital label of Parmigiano, promoted by the Consorzio del Parmigiano Reggiano. That of the famous brand is a cutting-edge experimentation in the agri-food sector: the Consortium are in fact the first to have introduced it, the forerunner of a trend that, if lucky, will lead to a substantial revolution in the sector. The experiment is of interest to the Parmigiano cheese dairies, over 300 scattered between Parma, Reggio-Emilia, Modena and the gates of Mantua and Bologna, which produce more than 4 million forms of cheese per year.

To the casein plate (edible, because it is made with milk proteins) introduced in 2002, the alphanumeric code and the QR code that constitute the “identity card” of the cheese, are joined by digital labels with micro-transponders that, together with the casein plate, create a sort of digital duplicate of the physical product. The initiative stems from the need to protect even more a product of Italian excellence and strengthen its PDO identity, but also to increase the degree of security of the brand, differentiate it from its peers and above all make it traceable at any time. The label – the result of the collaboration between the Consorzio del Parmigiano and the companies Kaasmer Matec and p-Chip Corporation – has the size of a grain of salt and resists tampering, accompanying the product at every stage of its existence, from the producer to the consumer.

The silicon tag will be integrated into the casein plate, it will be scanned and it will be implanted in the first 100,000 Parmigiano cheeses starting from the third quarter of 2022, in what will be the final phase of the large-scale test. If it proves to be a success, the label will digitalize the entire production, making Parmigiano the pioneer of a new era. In Emilia there is an air of revolution, and who knows that this does not increase even more the value of the product in the world.

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