Pigs fed with special waste. The Cremona NAS seizes 2,300 PDO prosciutto hams.

A raid by the Cremona NAS has led to the seizure of 2,300 PDO prosciutto hams (Parma, San Daniele and Modena), along with 750 pigs and 30 tonnes of food waste.

The scandal stems from a pig farmer in the Mantua area who fed his animals with special waste, namely food-production scraps, supplied by the owner of two food companies in the provinces of Mantua and Parma, who sold him the scraps instead of disposing of them in biogas plants.

Trade associations have raised a common chorus of alarm and condemnation against this type of food adulteration, which damages the Made in Italy image and harms the economy and consumers. Coldiretti states that "the excellent results of the inspection activity confirm the need to keep our guard up against food fraud, which puts health at risk and creates unfair competition for businesses committed to maintaining high quality standards".

Again according to Coldiretti, "food fraud is the most feared by Italian citizens, with six out of ten people considering it more serious than tax or financial fraud, since it can endanger health".

In a joint statement, the Consortiums of Prosciutto di San Daniele and Prosciutto di Parma commented on the affair, expressing appreciation for the prompt intervention of law enforcement, but also drawing attention to the unjustified nature of the alarm, since the pigs turn out to have been fed not with toxic waste but with food scraps (leftovers from pasta and bread processing, meat trimmings and preserves). The two consortiums point out that all the pigs on the farm were found to be healthy and that, in any case, this type of feeding leaves no residues of any kind in the meat.