October the 17th, 2023 – Turopolje pork/pig meat (meso turopoljske svinje) has now officially become the 45th Croatian product to be granted EU protection.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, Turopolje pork has received the European Union’s highly desired protected label of authenticity, the European Commission announced in the Official Journal of the European Union. As such, this product, which comes from the famed Turopolje pig, was entered in the register of protected marks of origin and protected marks of geographical origin and protected throughout the EU.
Seeing an EU label of origin or geographical origin on the packaging guarantees the consumer the purchase of an authentic product. The request for the granting of the protection of the name ”meso turopoljske svinje/Turopolje pork/pig meat” was submitted as a request to the Ministry of Agriculture.
What is the Turopolje pig?
The Turopolje pig originates from the area of Turopolje in Croatia, and in the second half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century, the breeding area of the Turopolje pig expanded from Turopolje out towards Sisak and Draganić. Later, the pig’s home range also included parts of Slavonia and Podravina, reaching all the way to the border with Hungary, which made the Turopolje pig the most widespread pig breed in all of Croatia.
The protection of the product “Turopolje pork” is based on the specific quality of this type of pig meat, which is the result of the genetic basis and the way the pigs are kept and fed, as well as the age of the pigs at the time of slaughter.
Turopolje pork joins an expanding list of Croatian products
The meat in question is characterised by a significantly darker and redder colour, a more compact muscle texture, and naturally has a higher degree of accumulation of fatty tissue, especially in the subcutaneous part and between the muscles. The Republic of Croatia now has 45 agricultural and food products with names officially registered by the European Union as having labels of protected designation of origin or protected designation of geographical origin.
