The Consortium for the Protection of Grana Padano cheese has entered into an agreement with Enersem, a spin-off of the Polytechnic University of Milan, for the promotion of the Ssda software, the first and only Environmental Decision Support Tool compliant with the Made Green in Italy scheme and the European PEF .

This is software developed by Enersem, the Departments of Energy and Design of the Polytechnic of Milan and the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Piacenza, as part of Life Ttgg, a European project which involved Grana Padano cheese between 2017 and 2022 , the most consumed PDO in the world, in defining a path to reduce the environmental footprint of the production of the entire supply chain, from the stable to the table.

The Consortium thus becomes a protagonist in the governance of the software tool that its associates have contributed to developing over the years of the project, making itself available to the engineers and technicians of Cattolica, Enersem and Politecnico for the collection of data at different stages of production: from the from stable to packaging, passing through processing in the dairy for which Enersem has developed and patented some specific energy efficiency measures.

Developed, validated and tested in the production contexts of Grana Padano PDO and French Comté PDO, the Ssda software is ready to optimize the environmental performance of other PDO supply chains as well. With the appropriate specifications, the software can in fact analyze all phases of the life cycle of each product of protected origin, from the raw material to the packaging, indicating improvement and saving strategies and interventions designed specifically for each supply chain.

With this new agreement, Enersem engineers and the main protection consortium in the world promote the first and only software capable of supporting the environmental decisions of Protected Designation of Origin products, helping them in the certification processes. A natural evolution of the pioneering role that the Life Ttgg project has had in promoting sustainability in the Italian dairy sector and which marries both the growing sensitivity of consumers to the companies' green commitment and the constant work to achieve the 17 objectives of the 2030 Agenda.

“It is a great satisfaction to put cutting-edge technology like ours at the service of the best Made In Italy food tradition", declares Matteo Zanchi, CEO and Development Manager of Enersem. "Our common goal is to make people understand how solid and effective it is the Ssda tool, which is able to simplify the entire environmental certification process and accelerate the ecological transition in the PDO sector, also saving companies money".

For his part, Stefano Berni , general director of the Grana Padano Consortium, comments on the signing of the agreement with Enersem as follows: "Sustainability belongs to the DNA of Grana Padano cheese and for this reason we are always at the forefront in the adoption of systems designed to improve the performances. For the first PDO in the world, which exports almost 50% of its product, reducing the environmental impact can only be a global commitment.”