Not only Dop (protected designation of origin) but also national cultural heritage: this is the business card that the San Marzano tomato will soon be able to display. In fact, in the Chamber of Deputies, in the Agriculture Committee, the examination of the bill to recognize the tomato of the Agro Sarnese-Nocerino, already DOP, also the title of "national cultural heritage", is starting.
A heritage that refers to "secular traditions and practices, historical processes of industrialization linked to the high agro-environmental vocation of a territory, set of human knowledge, skills and techniques, popular industriousness, extraordinary qualities and worldwide attractiveness of Italian agri-food products”, underlines the bill, an initiative of Forza Italia deputies, first signatory Paolo Russo.
A curiosity: the San Marzano DOP tomato refers to one of the few cases in the history of Italy in which entrepreneurship in the North has bet on the agri-environmental vocation of the lands in the South. It was Commendatore Francesco Cirio, a native of Nizza Monferrato, the Italian symbol of the canning industry, who channeled – after the incredible development of the factories opened in the north – efforts and investments in the south.
Realizing the extraordinary qualities of the area, transversal to Naples and Salerno, that is between the Picentini mountains, the Lattari mountains and Vesuvius, came to the south to give impetus to farmers and to start factories for the transformation of peeled tomatoes, having acquired that, among all the native vegetables, the San Marzano tomato, due to the organoleptic and morphological properties of the fruit and berries, revealed extremely peculiar precious…
In 2016, the area affected by the San Marzano PDO tomato was 200 hectares – compared to 120 in 2015 – and 11.600 tons were produced – compared to 7.500 in 2015 (data obtained from the protection consortium).
