For the first time Tuscany will be the star of a promotional programme in various supermarkets in China.
Tuscan prosciutto will be available at the City Super chains in Hong Kong from April 8 to 30.
During the promotional period there will be a series of training meetings for market staff in order to familiarize them with information for customers who frequent the City Super stores.
All of this will be preceded by a press conference to inform the media about this initiative and encourage people to go to the store to taste a true Made in Italy specialty.
The initiative will be flanked by an informational campaign financed in part by Toscana Promozione that will make up a part of the display in various stores that will highlight the product, the consortium's logo and the ad campaigns.
Vice president Fabio Viani will represent the consortium and promote Prosciutto Toscano.
Informing Chinese consumers about this product is important as it is considered an 'exotic' food. The term 'prosciutto' already exists in Chinese and means ''thigh dried in the wind''; in other words, a term that explains what the product is.
This is greatly appreciated by a culture whose language is not based on alphabetic letters to form words, but on ideograms that express ideas and concepts.
The Chinese also like the fact that prosciutto is displayed whole, as they are able to immediately recognize which part of the body it is.
Approximately 300,000 Prosciutto Toscano DOP's were produced in 2007, a total of 2,650 tons and a value of 40 million euro.
The Consorzio del Prosciutto Toscano, which boasts 21 members, was formed to protect and promote the prosciutto produced in Tuscany. The area's prosciutto has very precise characteristics.
The producers, aware of the necessity to protect their product from the uncontrolled proliferation of other types of prosciutto that had little in common with the Tuscan tradition, adopted rigid production regulations that include 'traceability' from farm to consumption in order to guarantee the quality of the product.
In 1996, Prosciutto Toscano received the prestigious 'Denominazione di Origine Protetta' quality denomination. Only prosciutto produced in Tuscany that follows the regulations set out by the Production Rules may be labelled 'DOP'.
The denomination only admits pigs born and raised in Tuscany or in North/Central Italy, the use of spices found in the area and a long curing process.
