“A successful cluster: the case of Agro-food Park of San Daniele del Friuli (Italy)”

Agenzia Sviluppo del Distretto Industriale dell’Agro-Alimentare

Where is the Agro-food Park?

Why the Agro-food Park?

HIGHSTANDING LEVEL OF LOCAL RESTAURANTS &

WINERIES FOR GOURMETS TOURISM

STRONG PECULIARITIES OF SAN DANIELE DISTRICT:

INTEGRITY OF ENVIRONMENTAL ASSETS (AIR, WATER)

SUSTAINABLE OUTPUTS WITH LOW IMPACT

TYPICAL AGRO-FOOD PRODUCTS

(Ham of San Daniele, Montasio and Fagagna cheeses)

CRAFTMENSHIPS TRADITION IN SPECIAL NICHES

CULTURAL, ARCHITECTURAL & FINE ARTS ASSETS

The products of the Agro-food Park

Seasoned raw ham

salami & sausages

sweet & salted bakeries

creameries

wines & alcohols

biological products

fisheries and smoked trout

Region: FRIULI-VENEZIA GIULIAChamber of Commerce of UDINE

Local Productive Units 31.12.2010

D - Attivita' manifatturiere / DA15 Industrie alimentari e delle bevande Unità

Production, processing & preservation of meat & meat based products 58

Processing & preservation of fish & fisheries 1

Production of oils & vegetal and animal fats + processing of fruit & vegetables 1

Dairy, creamery & ice-cream production 8

Processing of grains & starch products for breed feeding 1

Production of other food stuff 34

Beverage Industry 5

TOTAL 108

Main economic indicators of the Agro-food Park(Q4_2010 data)

Clustering companies N. 108 (58 in PDO ham)(about 25% of total manufacturers)

Employment 1.000 + 700 (subcontractors)

Business size 4 to 6 jobs (average)(only few bigger companies in ham production)

Trading 2.750.000 PDO ham (+3,5%)10% sliced in boxes

Turnover € 335 millions

Export 18%

History of the Agro-food Park

Industrial Districts (i.e. Clusters in Italy)

The legal framework in the Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia

Regional Act of Law 11th November 1999, n. 27 on “Industrial districts development” was issued at the end of year 1999 as the first systemic frame for the regional cluster policy.

Decision 3rd March 2000 n. 458 was adopted by the Regional Government for the establishment of the industrial district named Distretto dell‘Alimentare. Other three districts were initially endorsed too.

Enforcing Art. 2 of the RAL n. 27/1999, DRG n. 458 identifies the Agro-food Cluster :

> by sector as referring to the economic category “Food & Beverages Industry” (NACE rev.2 = C10.11),

> by territory as laid down in the 6 Municipalities of San Daniele del Friuli, Coseano, Dignano, Fagagna, Ragogna e Rive d'Arcano.

Specialization Sector:AGRO-FOOD INDUSTRY

NACE Code rev.2: C10.11: Processing & preserving of meat

• seasoned raw ham (Prosciutto San Daniele PDO)

• salami & sausages

• sweet & salad bakeries

• cheese & creameries

• fisheries

• wines & alcohols

unità locali che producono prosciutto

2%18%

4%

76%

Dignano Ragogna Rive D'Arcano San Daniele

From the District to the Development Agency 1

A new RAL 4th March 2005 n. 4 ruled on the transformation of the previously established Industrial Districts Committees (coordination bodies where legal acts were up to the leading municipality only), into a new legal entity called Industrial District Development Agency (Agenzia di Sviluppo del Distretto Industriale – ASDI)

On 20th December 2006 as the ASDI of agro-food district

> a new company was established > as a consortium with limited liability

> named “PARCO AGRO-ALIMENTARE DI SAN DANIELE

Soc. Consortile a r.l.”

From the District to the Development Agency 2

Main feature of the ASDI of agro-food district is to be a contractual consortium with limited liability with public & private equities.

ASDI shareholders are:agro-food businesses & businesses of related sectors with HQ or productive units in the territory of the 6 original municipalities of the district, the 6 municipalities joining San Daniele del Friuli in the district from the beginning, new entries among surrounding municipalities, when allowed, the Province of Udine and other local entities, the Chamber of Commerce of Udine , the entrepreneurial associations & other professional associations, banking and financial organisations, other stakeholders implementing services relevant for the companies settled in the agro-food district.

The structure of ASDI – Agro-food Park

Bodies of the Consortium are:

a) the Shareholders Assembly;

b) the Board of Directors;

c) the President of the BoD.

The Shareholders Assembly

The equity of ASDI amounts to € 100.000

and is entitled to the shareholders as follows:

51% is possessed by public bodies (Municipalities, their associated bodies & Udine Province)

49 % is possessed by private entities (companies, associations, other BSO including University & RTD Centres)

Voting rights are proportional to the possessed equities.

The Assembly makes the choice of the members of the Board of Directors

Unione Artigiani & Piccole e Medie Imprese

Confederazione Italiana Agricoltori della Provincia di Udine

Associazione degli Industriali della Provincia di Udine

Federazione Provinciale Coldiretti

C.N.A. Associazione provinciale di Udine

Istituto Nord Est Qualità - INEQ s.r.l.

Friuli Innovazione, RTD & technology transfer centre

Camera di Commercio, Industria, Artigianato e Agricoltura di Udine

Comune di Coseano

Comune di Dignano

Comune di Fagagna

Comune di Ragogna

Comune di Rive d’Arcano

Comune di San Daniele del Friuli

Comunità Collinare del Friuli

Provincia di Udine

Consorzio del prosciutto San Daniele

Consorzio per la Tutela del Formaggio Montasio

Associazione Piccole e Medie Industrie di Udine

Associazione del Commercio del Turismo e dei Servizi di Udine

Shareholders of ASDI Agro-food Park

The Board of Directors of the ASDI

BoD members are nine. They are elected by the Assembly, from

outside the shareholders representatives also.

BoD composition is as follows:

• 4 members are elected by the private shareholders

• 4 members are elected by the public shareholders

• 1 member is appointed by the Udine Chamber of Commerce

• 1 member without voting rights is appointed by the Trade Unions

BoD is elected for three financial years.

The President and one Vice President are elected among the

BoD members.

to promote the district culture & brand, the knowledge of the territory and its agro-food products, shaping actions with tourism & communication impact

to make more of history, culture and local traditions as the very typical features of the district and of its products

to generate projects for the economic development of the territory focusing on the standing protection & improvement of quality & effectiveness of the agro-food companies & their production

to facilitate synergy among local businesses & new partnership agreements among Municipalities and other public or private partners

Lake of Ragogna

Tagliamento river at Dignano

Mission of the ASDI Agro-food Park 1

to promote innovation skills in the companies

to support the establishment of Business Support Organizations for the sake of a standing competitive evolution of the clustering companies

to encourage internationalization strategies of companies & their access to new markets

to strive to contribute to a planned territorial governance for the infrastructural enhancement of the district and neighbouring areas

to act for the protection & the improvement of the environmental conditions, the landscape & the natural diversity in the territory, including intelligent energy measures.

Mission of the ASDI Agro-food Park 2

Activities of the Agro-food Park

• Promotion Strategies

• Strategies for the support of companies

• Strategies for environmental monitoring

& protection of the territory

Territorial Marketing – The Brand

• The original logo of the Industrial District enshrines in its graphic lines the specificity of the local landscape by recording the environmental features of sun, river, mountains and sky.

• Moreover ASDI choose to have a name: “Agro-food Park”.The aim is to stress the character of not only a manufacturing, but also a natural environment combining different assets of attractiveness and stressing the role of the whole territory.

• The name was chosen as a summary of both environmental and productive suggestions mirroring the feeling of the Cluster of San Daniele as a place where development is sustainable!

The Project for Salt RecoveryAn innovative special equipment has been designed and industrialized for the recovery of solid and fluid salt waste accumulated in key junctions of the ham manufacturing process.

This equipment to be installed in each company allows:

1.to avoid dispersion of liquid waste in the environment,

2.to recover meat remains for additional transformation (pet-food)

The system generated a new service centre for the centralized

management of the process with substantial savings for businesses.

On line One Stop Shop for productive activitiesA telematic portal for easing administrative proceedings allows to deal with all burdens of business / PA obligations in electronic format including signature and the delivery of the files by certified e-mail.

Area Science Park of Trieste

Establishment of a Competence Centre in the Agro-food Park for the tailor-made delivery of knowledge and innovation to the local producers.

Voluntary Association of Bovine Quality Meat

Objective of this project is the organization of a small value chain of bovine quality meat processing and trading in the Agro-food Park of San Daniele (Ham District).

Experimental Station for the production of food preserves – SSICA

Aim of this project is to establish a contact point on food-preserves technology for the processing industry of fruits, vegetables, meat and fisheries in Italy and in the neighbouring countries as a multiplier of the TTS implemented by SSICA of Parma (www.ssica.it/)

Voluntary Association of the Producers of Olive Extra Virgin Oil in the Agro-food Park

Thanks to the featuring of the territory, the aim of this project is to raise the awareness of new small olive farmers producing extra-virgin oil in the Park about the branding of their product as a new component of the integrated economy of typical quality products.

This result could be achieved through the finalization of a Productive Regulation similar to a PDO discipline, allowing this new product to get the brand of San Daniele Park with more flexible regulations.

Such an approach proved already effective for marketing the enhanced production of “The Smoked Trout of San Daniele”, driven by ham brand and its commercial network.

TRANSFORMA Project – OP Italy - Slovenia

Aim of this project is to connect a CBC network of TT Centres for tutoring innovation in the food & fish processing sector and for

making more of the local cultural heritage.

The competitiveness of SMEs will be enhanced by knowledge sharing and marketing techniques, tailor-made to local production and focused mostly on KM 0 approach.

The partner centres in the network will also incubate start-ups providing demonstrative practice with new equipments and the development of business plans better connecting the value chain of agricultural production and agro-food processing.

NIR Project – ham and cheese control

Aim of this project is to use a new prototype System to Near-Infrared (NIR) solutions for analizing ham and cheese to assess

the quality of different ingredients and processing parameters and to have a correlation with the product specification using standrad chemical analysis

The results reveale the potentiality of NIR hyperspectral imaging as an objective and non-destructive method for the authentication and classification of ham and chees.

Strategies for the protection and the environmental control

of the territory

Environmental Projects

The LIFE project “VENTO”

The project “VENTO - Voluntary ENvironmental TOols for the continuous improvement of a district” was funded by the Community programme Life - Environment.

The project promoted awareness of all actors in the territory in order to enable them to become “environmental quality providers”.

Focused on the problem “environmental impact of economic activity” within an integrated vision of the territorial management VENTO achieved the result of starting a process of standing improvement of the environmental performance of the cluster and subsequently .....

Certifications & registrations achieved

VENTO SPECIFIC RESULTS

EMAS Registration of the 6 Municipalities

APO (Ambito Produttivo Omogeneo) certificate awarded by the Italian EMAS Committee

EMAS

Certification of the 6 Municipalities Certification of the Hills CommunityCertification of the Ham Consortium

ISO 14001

Joining entitiesProcedure

First municipalities in the Region FVG!First Agro-food Cluster in Italy!

Tourism in the territory

of the Agro-food Park of San Daniele

AMAMO PROJECT

(Attraverso i mari e i monti)

Funded by INTERREG & CARDS - Phare under the New Neighbourhood Programme Adriatic (2000-06), AMAMO dealt with the

territorial integrated programming of rural areas sharing common endogenous resources

(food-stuffs, natural & cultural ones), with the aim of better marketingat international level the maritime and mountainous resources of the Adriatic basin and its surroundings.

Partners of the project were only from Italy and Croatia.

Sample of output of AMAMO project

www.amamo.eu

Pilot Actions

Promotional Activities

Federation of Italian Districts - FID

FID is a no profit association for the representation of common problems, interests and proposals of the Industrial & Productive Clusters in Italy. Established in 1994, it is strongly supported by Confindustria & Italian Unioncamere.

Associates of FID are more then 50 representative bodies of Italian Clusters from all regions and manufacturing sectors.

Additional task of FID is to facilitate dialogue among the clusters that are quite different according with different regional implementing regulations and to encourage also cross-sectoral cooperation shaping the so called “Italian Metadistrict”

FID website is at www.distretti.org/

The Earth Market in San Daniele

The name is “Earth Market”, mirroring the successful international “farmer’s markets” initiative for the promotion of slow food.The new campaign was started together by Slow Food Italy, Chamber of Udine and the Municipality of San Daniele del Friuli with the aim of making more of the short value chain & of marketing local economy and its seasonal products across a worldwide network of farmers markets.

The “Earth Market” in San Daniele is the first experience in Friuli Venezia Giulia and just the second in Italy with monthly rhythm, every third Saturday in a month.

www.mercatidellaterra.it/welcome.lasso

Consortium for the Protection of the Montasio

cheese

Consortium Montasio Cheese - History

• 1773 The first official market list document where Montasio cheese is

mentioned• 1878 The first “cooperative” dairy farm appears• The first Dairy Technician school was founded in San Vito al

Tagliamento• 1955 Montasio was awarded the Traditional Speciality Guaranteed

denomination• 1984 The Consortium for the Protection of the Montasio cheese was

founded• 1986 Designation of Origin (DO) awarded• 1987 Appointment as Production and Sales Supervisor• 1996 Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) awarded to Montasio

cheese by the EEC

Consortium Montasio Cheese

Legislative References

•1955 Montasio was awarded the Traditional Speciality Guranteed

denomination by Presidential Decree 1269 – October 30, 1955•1986 Registered Designation of Origin (DOC) awarded by

Presidential Decree – March 10, 1986•1987 Appointment as Production and Sales Supervisor by

Ministerial Order – March16, 1987•1996 Montasio awarded Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) by

the EEC – EC Regulation 1107 dated June 12, 1996•2000 Amendment motion to production specifications of the

Montasio cheese PDO – Official Journal n. 75 dated April 30, 2000•2002 Recognition by the Consortium for the Protection of the

Montasio cheese and appointment to carry out the office as per art. 14,

paragraph 15 of law n. 526 dated 21/12/1999

Consortium Montasio Cheese

Production Area

The production area of the Montasio cheese is set out as follows:

- Friuli Venezia Giulia region: the whole territory of the provinces of Udine,

Pordenone, Gorizia and Trieste:

- Veneto region: the whole territory of the provinces of Treviso and Belluno

and partially the provinces of Venice and Padua.

Features of Montasio cheese

Montasio cheese is a cooked semi-hard cheese obtained exclusively from

cow’s milk from the production area.

It has 3 ageing stages:

- Fresh, aged from 60 to 120 days

- Semi-aged, aged from 5 to 10 months

- Aged, aged for more than 10 months.

Features of Montasio cheese

The organoleptic features of Montasio cheese are different based on its ageing process:- fresh, it has a soft and delicate flavour that recalls the milk from which it’s produced;- the flavour of the semi-aged cheese is more marked and has a particular fullness;- the aged version takes on quite an aromatic flavour that isn’t excessive and is great for the consumer that prefers a strong and marked flavour.The paste of the Montasio cheese has small, regular, clear holes that are uniform throughout and are characteristic of this cheese.In the fresh Montasio the rind is smooth, elastic, compact and light brown; the paste is compact and white or straw-yellow.As the ageing period extends, the rind becomes drier and the paste becomes grainy and crumbly. The rounds of Montasio cheese are identified by a distinctive mark on the side of the round, the repetition of “Montasio” in an oblique direction. A second mark, the quality mark, is branded by the commission of the Consortium and identifies the product that has been flawless during an ageing period of more than 100 days.The date of production and the producer’s code is marked on the side.

Production techniques of Montasio cheese

Since then, the production techniques have evolved, but the original concept of

transformation has been kept intact. As a matter of fact, the milk is transformed

into cheese by using non-invasive techniques that don’t upset the original microbial

and bacterial flora.

This is done by using raw, fresh milk that hasn’t been subjected to vigorous

treatments.

The fermentation is done by using a low-acid graft obtained by fermenting the milk

after a low-heat pasteurization.

All this favours the multiplication of the natural milk enzymes that are typical of the

production area, of the cattle breed and of the hay used.

The classic processing technique foresees two daily collections of the milk and the

evening one is skimmed. The milk is then put in cauldrons, usually copper, to

which the grafted milk (lattoinnesto), 0,5/1 Kg per hectolitre, is added; this mixture

is heated to 32/34° C and then the rennet, obtained by drying the stomachs of

colostrums-deprived calves, is added.

Production techniques of Montasio cheese

After about 20/25 minutes of curdling, the gelatinous mass is cut with a “lira” (it

gets its name from the shape of the musical instrument popular with Nero).

The curds obtained are the size of a grain of rice.

Then the mass is heated at a temperature of 44/46° C.

While stirring, the cooking or curd cutting takes place, this is fundamental to firm up

the mass with the expulsion of the whey from the curds.

After about 20/30 minutes, the Montasio is extracted with cloths. The rounds are

then put in the characteristic “fascere” (hoops) that reproduce the original mark and

the date of production; and then they’re pressed to drain the whey and give it its

characteristic form.

After about 24 hours the cheese is dipped in brine (water and salt solution) for a

period of about 48 hours. After this, the cheese is dry-salted one last time and then

put in cellars for the ageing process.

The Consortium for the Protection of the Montasio cheese

A quality cheese like Montasio must be produced according to determining and

very precise factors that make it typical.

The first fundamental factor is the area of origin: Friuli, eastern Veneto in the

provinces of Belluno and Treviso and partially in the provinces of Padua and

Venice.

The second is the milk, a factor that is highly connected to the environment, its

climate and its vegetation. The correct production implies accurate monitoring of

the quality of raw material and its progressive transformation. The third factor is the

use of a non-invasive technology that favours the slow formation of the product.

The fourth is the marking of the cheese during its production; it guarantees the

origin and the observance of all the characteristics stipulated in the specifications.

This is why Montasio, even today, is a cheese made like it was years ago in our

mountains. Good today like it was in the past. Naturally, as long as it’s the true

Montasio with the marking of the Consortium for the Protection of the Montasio

cheese.

Activities carried out by the Consotrium of Montasio cheese

The activities carried out by the Consortium are both at an institutional level (supervision of the production and distribution) and on a production promotional level.With regards to the supervision of the product, the Inspectors of the Consortium have the task of verifying both the quantity and quality aspects of the production.The company associated with the Consortium has the obligation to fill in a specially provided register daily where the different evaluation processes regarding the quantity and distribution of the product are recorded.More specifically the inspectors verify is the milk transformed into Montasio comes from the production area.At an institutional level, the Consortium, beside offering assistance, verifies the production processes, collects samples for the analysis of the quality parameters and, generally speaking, supervise and coordinate research activities in collaboration with the main academic boards and institutions of north-eastern Italy.Together with the inspectors, the Consortium takes on the role of supervisor and controller of the distribution of Montasio to protect the consumer.More specifically the hygienic and health norms for the distribution of Montasio, the legal use of the marking and the correct use of the designation of origin are verified continuously

RELEVANT CONTACTS

Agenzia di Sviluppo del Distretto IndustrialeParco Agro-alimentare di San Daniele Via Garibaldi n. 2333038 San Daniele del Friuli (UD) - Italy

Tel. +39 0432 954495Fax. +39 0432 943756

Website www.parcoagroalimentare.ite-mail info@parcoagroalimentare.it