Best Croatian pršut 2019 awarded in Zagreb
- by croatiaweek
- in News
ZAGREB, 26 April 2019 – The best pršut in Croatia has been awarded at the nation’s biggest pršut event on Friday.
The awards were held at the 5th Days of Croatian Pršut in Zagreb where the leading pršut producers from Drniš in Dalmatia, Istria and Kvarner, which brands have all been protected at EU level, gathered for the big annual event.
With 95.36 points, the award for the best Croatian pršut went to Drniške Delicije Maran from Drniš.
“I’m pleasantly surprised by the title, because the competition was strong,” said this year’s winner Zoran Ćevid, adding that the pršut is produced using a traditional recipe.
Ćevid says for high-quality pršut the most important thing was the quality of the raw materials and that the time from the slaughtering to the salting did not exceed 72 hours.
Ten pršut samples were judged in the finals with exceptional quality seen this year. Points ranged from 87.75 to 95.38 and all samples were awarded Gold Medal awards based on quality.
Best Croatian pršut awards 2019
- 95.38 – Drniške delicije Maran
- 94.13 – Smjeli (Dalmatia)
- 94.00 – Mijukić prom (Dalmatia)
- 94.00 – Dujmović (Istria)
- 92.13 – Mesnice marketa Žužić (Krk)
- 90.63 – Opskrbe trade (Dalmatia)
- 89.75 – Braća Pivac (Vrgorac)
- 89.38 – BEL-CRO (Drniš)
- 88.38 – Pisinium (Istria)
- 87.75 – Voštane (Dalmatia)
“The numbers show that five years ago, we had 250 thousand pršut producers to 400,000 today. That’s a big increase of sixty percent. This was accomplished by hard work and large investments, perhaps the largest in the food industry, amounting to more than 40 million euros. The biggest success is that the share of homemade raw material in our pršut producers has increased from ten percent to more than 50 percent over the past five years,” said Darko Markotić, chairman of the “Croatian pršut”cluster.
“We will give national financial support to raise primary production and thus receive quality raw materials for the production of Croatian pršut,” said State Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, Tugomir Majdak, adding that pig farming is a strategic branch that the Government plans to develop.
“In addition to the export potential, Croatian pršut has great potential for marketing in tourism through the top gastronomic offer, because modern tourists are looking for an authentic experience, and through their gastronomic offer they can best acquaint themselves with the way of life, customs and rich traditions of the population at a particular destination,” said Dragan Kovačević, vice president for agriculture and tourism at the Croatian Chamber of Economy.
Special prizes were awarded to producers Josip Hreljak, owner of Pisinium, which is famous for the production of top quality Istrian pršut and Juri Barić, owner of the company “Opskrba Trade” from Slivno near Imotski, known for the production of Dalmatian pršut.
