The “Week of Italian Cuisine in the World,” an annual review promoted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, has just concluded, and it returned a picture of Italian cuisine in excellent health.

There are almost 600 thousand restaurants in the world that call themselves Italian (but according to Fipe, just over 2,200 are!), and more and more are using Italian cheeses in iconic recipes of our tradition, such as gorgonzola risotto (https://www.gorgonzola.com/?s=risotto&post_type=recipe ). In general, the export of certified Italian cheeses is growing by 11% and is the first item in the turnover of Protected Designation of Origin productions, representing about 60% of the world export of all Italian dairy products with 254,000 tons exported in 2023, for an estimated value close to 3 billion euros (source afidop.it). “We also intend to promote abroad the guidelines developed with FIPE for the proper enhancement of PDO cheeses on menus, and we also want to relaunch the cheese cart,” said Antonio Auricchio, President of the Gorgonzola Pdo Consortium and AFIDOP, “which is a real tasteful journey into the history and traditions of our territories, among unique aging and production methods. However, President Auricchio also sounds an alarm concerning the excellent export data. “We look with concern at the recent outcome of the U.S. elections, which inevitably lights a new alarm bell for our sector. The U.S. is our first non-EU market, and in 2020, following the duties imposed by Trump, Italian cheese exports to the U.S. had lost more than 6 thousand tons or 65 million euros. We trust that the progress made will not be thwarted.”

Among the most popular Pdo cheeses abroad is Gorgonzola Pdo, which had over 1 million wheels exported in the first half of 2024, up 4%. Also confirming the positive trend are the online searches that reveal that Gorgonzola is the second most searched cheese on the web with 23,200 searches (compared to 18,300 for Parmigiano Reggiano Pdo and 9,200 for Grana Padano Pdo (source: Blogmeter) made by users who want to make their recipes at home.

Tourists are also increasingly turning to dairies and mountain pastures like wine cellars have been doing for some time. The recent first “Report on Tourism and the World of Cheese,” created by Roberta Garibaldi for the Italian Association of Food and Wine Tourism, analyzes cheese-related tourism showing a growing trend: 32.7% of Italian tourists say they have participated in at least one cheese-themed experience during their travels in the last three years – including visits to dairies, events and festivals, thematic itineraries and dedicated experiences in restaurants – and the numbers are increasing in the last three years (+7.3% over 2021). Dairies and dairy farms are at the heart of this new tourism offering. Traditional visits and tastings are being joined by engaging and experiential proposals such as cheese pairing courses (appreciated by 55% of respondents) and cheese workshops (52%).

At home, in restaurants, online, or on the road, cheese lovers are growing worldwide.