Villani S.P.A.

VILLANI SALUMI, A STORY SET IN EMILIA THAT STRETCHES BACK TO 1886In 2019, Villani Salumi turns 133. This historical achievement means the company is the oldest charcuterie maker in Italy's Emilia-Romagna region and among the longest established in Italy. Villani is a family-run company that produces special, top-quality dressed meats, with all the passion of artisans and all the guarantees of a modern company.With five generations of families and lifetime spanning three centuries of Italian charcuterie history, today, Villani is one of the nation's leading names. A position and a production scale that have been achieved without ever betraying the artisan spirit of its origins and its strong ties with the local area.Villani S.p.A. was established in 1886 in Castelnuovo Rangone, in the province of Modena, which is now one of Europe's most important food districts. After a spell spent marketing fresh meat and sausages, Costante Villani and Ernesta Cavazzuti purchased a building and began processing pork, curing salami, coppa and pancetta, and producing mortadella and cooked ham. The company soon demonstrated its export acumen and its crates were bearing the words "destination: New York" as early on as the 1930s.It was Giuseppe, one of Costante's eleven children, who kept his father's project alive, with his particular innovative spirit. Back home after a trip to the United States, he used the tools he'd brought back in his suitcase to bring innovation to the production process, introducing drying hangers (a technique which was later adopted by all the other dressed meat makers). He journeyed through Italy to learn about the regional charcuterie, which enabled him to expand the range to include a vast assortment of regional specialities, which are now sold worldwide, including in the towns where their recipes originated, showing a genuine appreciation of the products' quality.Today Villani has seven production sites: in Castelnuovo Rangone (Modena) it produces salami, cooked hams and specialties from the Emilia area; in Bentivoglio (Bologna) mortadella; in Castelfranco Emilia (MO) coppa and pancetta; in San Daniele del Friuli (Udine) San Daniele ham PDO; in Langhirano Parma ham PDO and other dry-cured products.At the company's historic site, visitors can look round the MuSa charcuterie museum, the first ever museum dedicated to dressed meats in Italy, which was opened in 2013, with guest Massimo Bottura, and chosen by the Ferrari Museums as a leg of the "Discover Ferrari & Pavarotti Land" tour.MuSa was devised as a space for communication, learning, and dissemination of the art of cured meats. In its rooms, visitors are guided along a multi-sensory, multimedia voyage of discovery through the history, technique, and passion of the men and women who have created a culinary legacy that is appreciated the world over.www.villanisalumi.it