Grana Padano, plan for growth but no more production peaks like in 2025

More production but without excesses and avoiding the peaks of late 2025, to maintain the value created over the years. This is the strategy pursued by the Consortium of Grana Padano - the first Italian PDO with a production value of over 2.18 billion euro,of which more than half is destined for export - and reaffirmed at the Assembly on 18 December, which recorded an overall consumption trend "in line with forecasts" and "much better performance than expected" for turnover.

"Grana Padano production compared to 2024 will also grow significantly in 2026, but the peaks in the second half of 2025 must be prevented," the Consortium announced in a note. In order to achieve this goal, "the General Assembly of the Protection Consortium has, extraordinarily and only for 2026, updated the production plan, a tool that for more than 20 years has favoured the success in Italy and abroad of the most consumed PDO cheese in the world".

"The strategic plan," said the general manager Stefano Berni, "hits the targets for growth in quantities and even does better than the turnover forecasts. But at the heart of the meeting was the discussion on the 8% production surplus accrued in 2025. "It is absolutely unusual, it only happened in the last thirty years in 2005," the CEO emphasised, "and it needs to be managed so that it does not repeat itself so conspicuously in 2026.

What pushed milk production towards Grana Padano wasthe combination of the profitability of processing into the leading PDO cheese and the low spot milk price last summer. Thus, while the first half of 2025 was substantially in line with forecasts, the second one even quadrupled them.

"The General Assembly therefore resolved on the measures connected to the Production Plan, so that in 2026 Grana Padano would continue to grow, but not as markedly as in 2025," Berni explained. "Therefore, a multiplier to grow on the costs that the production plan attributes to production above quota was adopted. This tool will result in a slowdown of exaggerations''. The desired target is a 3% growth, and in any case a +1% increase in production has been granted to all dairies that request it.