The Consorzio Cooperative Pescatori del Polesine Organizzazione Produttori is a company that, founded in 1976, has unified the various local fishermen’s cooperatives that, in those years, operated independently and sometimes in competition. Currently the Consortium brings together fourteen cooperatives and overall the employees organized in the company are about 1450 and among these about 700 are women, about fifty employees of the Consortium plus other employees of the various cooperatives.
Our company represents the largest company in terms of employees in the entire Province of Rovigo, with an annual turnover of about 40,000,000 euros.
Currently the annual production potential is 3,000 tons of mussels, a product that has high quality standards and superior organoleptic characteristics, so much so that in 2013 it obtained the recognition of Protected Designation of Origin for the “Cozza di Scardovari” (the only PDO for molluscs in Italy), the Consortium also holds the following brands:
Since the early 1990s, the mussel farming activity has been expanded and developed also in the sea opposite the Po Delta, currently 8 concessions are productive in the open sea. In these off-shore plants owned by the Consortium and the Associated Cooperatives, approximately 1,500 tons are produced.
The key factor in the production, economic and employment growth in the entire lower Polesine area was the start, in the mid-1980s, of the breeding of the true clam.
The areas of the Po Delta in the Polesano area have proven to be particularly suitable for the growth of this bivalve, where the species, after the first sowings, quickly acclimatized and large beds of molluscs were structured, which are currently managed with various practices and actions by the Consortium.
The Consortium owns a purification center, which allows the molluscs to be traded with wholesalers and large-scale distribution.
