Eating ethical meat is possible

Our Grigio del Casentino® pigs are raised in a semi-free range in their habitat, the forests of Casentino. Ours is an extensive breeding that guarantees the welfare of the animals – because it entails living conditions very similar to natural ones – and the highest quality of meat.

Let’s face it: extensive farming takes more time, is more difficult, more tiring, and less profitable than intensive farming. Why then did we choose to produce meat in this way? The reason is simple.

For us, it’s a matter of principle

Ensuring the welfare of our animals is a fundamental value. We do not aim to produce as much as possible in the shortest time, but to obtain meat of absolute quality through ethical and natural breeding.

As breeders and butchers, we have the responsibility to work with respect. Meat should be a pleasure to be enjoyed in moderation and never wasted. Quality, understood as a combination of taste, health, and ethics is the final goal. Only when it is produced in this way, with a sustainable vision, meat is truly good.

The elements that make our extensive breeding sustainable for the environment and for animals are four: space, feeding, time and tradition. Let’s see them together.

A natural space to move

Our Grigio del Casentino® pigs are free to move and experience nature as a whole. They can bask in the sun, root in the mud and feed on what nature has to offer according to the seasons.

Extensive breeding also involves caring for and protecting the animals. We organize separate areas for the pigs based on their age. Nature is not always forgiving: intense cold and predators are real threats. For this reason, newly born piglets stay in warm wooden stables, and only when they are able to survive outdoors are they released with other small piglets.

As they grow, the available space increases until they become mature and resilient specimens. At this point, they can wander and move freely in the woods.

Extensive does not mean without fences. Nets and barbed wire protect our pigs from wild predators. The little huts, on the other hand, provide shelter from rain and snow.

For the rest, nature does everything. Changing the bond between the Grigio del Casentino® pigs and the woods in which they live would mean disrupting the balances of nature, which gives so much to this meat.

The health of the animal also depends on its feeding

We don’t give any antibiotics of any kind or medicines to our Grigio del Casentino® pigs, except for the vaccine required by law. Feeding is natural and genuine, mainly composed of fruits, roots, berries, acorns and mushrooms according to the season.

In addition to the feeding itself, it is precisely the life of these pigs that is healthy, because it takes place outdoors in their natural habitat, in full respect of time and nature.

To limit losses, many breeders have started to administer antibiotics as prophylaxis. The doses have exponentially increased over the years, to the point of reaching unthinkable quantities: according to a study by the European Medicine Agency, the European agency responsible for controlling the safety of drugs for human and veterinary use, about 70% of antibiotics sold in Italy in 2023 are destined for farms.

This, for us, is something inconceivable.

For things well done, time is needed

Extensive breeding does not aim at the rapid growth of the animal but at a perfect condition of life and health. Many breeders administer hormones or feed with additives to make their animals grow faster, slaughter them earlier and optimize productivity.

We give our Grigio del Casentino® pigs something better, time. We respect the animals and their growth rate, and that’s why we don’t rush nature. We only slaughter pigs that are at least 14 months old, which means they have already seen a complete seasonal cycle.

We are the opposite of the logics, the rhythms and the production volumes of intensive farming, but this is where we want to be. Every animal, for us, is important and requires time and care to be valued properly.

This also changes the time of our work. Breeding, meat cutting, aging: the entire project is based on respecting time, from start to finish. Our products are so good because we know that finding shortcuts to speed up times means corrupting something exceptional.

Breeding as it was originally

Tradition is the fourth pillar of our extensive breeding. We follow this system because it is the only one we consider right and it is what our grandparents had taught us in a territory that is our home, as well as the habitat of our pigs.

It takes time, effort and experience to produce exceptional meat. We are proud to work with passion and respect following the footsteps of the breeders, butchers, and charcutiers of the Casentino valley, whose gestures we repeat day after day.

We rely on young breeders who keep alive traditional breeding, the only one that produce meat of the highest quality ethically. For us, every animal is a gift and the saying “everything but the oink” is the basis of our work. Just as our grandparents did, we use the entire pig because, for us, there are no first and second-rate cuts.

What changes in meat

So far, we have seen what extensive breeding implies in the lives of animals and in our method of work. Let’s now see how this principle affects the taste and health of meat.

Better and healthier meat

Grigio del Casentino® pork meat has a genuine, authentic flavor, with a perfect balance between fat and lean parts. The fat is exceptional, nothing to do with that of animals fattened by force that can’t even move. This is a real heap of all the tastes and scents of the woods.

Grigio del Casentino® pork meat offers a true sensory experience. The most attentive palates will perceive changes in flavors based on the season and the pig’s feeding. But above all, it is a healthy meat, which comes from animals raised naturally without the use of antibiotics or hormones, rich in good fats, Omega 3, and Omega 6.

Conscious meat-eaters: the virtuous circle of ethical consumption

Nutrition is a choice that we renew every day. Choosing meat from extensive farming has an impact on the conditions of animals and on our health, not to mention the pleasure that derives from it.

Intensive farming is neither ethical nor sustainable, and meat is neither good nor healthy. The alternative is not necessarily giving up meat itself, but an alternative model of production. Extensive breeding is the first requirement for ethical consumption.

We produce meat with respect and awareness, and for this reason, we are the first to support that we must eat less meat and choose only the highest quality. Consuming meat ethically is possible, you just have to choose a model that respects animals, time, and nature.