Italy’s cheese makers facing losses of £200 million following earthquake

“It’s a disaster – two years work just thrown away. There will be a big
hole in the market – you can’t just conjure up cheese which took 24 months
to produce.” Badly damaged cheeses will turn mouldy and are likely to
be thrown away.

Less badly affected cheeses will probably be ground up and sold as
pre-packaged, grated Parmesan, fetching far less than the 15 euros a kilo
that mature cheeses commands.

Around a dozen Parmesan factories and ageing warehouses were damaged by the
quake, which struck at 4am on Sunday, reducing historic buildings to rubble
and destroying factories.

Producers of prosciutto ham were also affected by the earthquake, which hit a
rich agricultural triangle between the historic cities of Bologna, Modena
and Ferrara.

Several hundreds pigs were crushed to death when the sheds in which they were
kept collapsed.

Tractors, stables, silos, irrigation pipelines and other agricultural
equipment was also damaged.

The overall damage to business will run into “no less than hundreds of
millions of euros,” according to Confindustria, Italy’s employers’
organisation.

Mario Monti, the prime minister, visited the quake-hit region on Tuesday,
having rushed back from the Nato summit in Chicago at the weekend.

He met the relatives of people killed by the tremor and confirmed that he
would declare the area an emergency zone, freeing up government funds.

Amid continuing aftershocks, more than 5,000 people who were left homeless by
the quake are sleeping in tents, cars and emergency accommodation.

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