La Fattoria di Parma

Salami Artisans since 1936

The History of a Family

La Fattoria was born in Parma from a family that always believed in the extraordinary potential of their land and could count 150 years experience in making great-quality cured meats.

In 1968, Guido Pongolini and his wife Anna Maria, decided that being open to change is essential to grow and improve, therefore they decided to start a whole new production project: La Fattoria di Parma.

This venture started in the historical family ham-factory, in Fontanellato, a place in the heart of Parma’s Bassa (Low Land).

Their children, Paolo and Cristina, joined the parents and the company set sail to a new level of Extreme Quality, thanks to a company plan that increasingly aims to reach perfection for their products, by taking care of every single detail, from production to gift-wraps.

The Pongolini Family has years of experience in welcoming their guests with guided tours, tailor-made tastings and eno-gastronomic sessions, all within a very suggestive and relaxed environment. Since the initial opening of the ageing room to visitors, a special atmosphere has been created in order to make every tour out of the ordinary.

Under the factory’s walls, next to the wooden shelves where Parmigiano-Reggiano is left aging, the steel of the most advanced equipment shines, while if you look up at the walls, phots of men and women of the Parma’s Bassa show up their work, their concentrated look, their hands busy butchering pigs, preparing the meats to be cured.

Soft lights, a muffled silence, an atmosphere full of flavours: we are in the ageing rooms of Culatello "Re Delle Nebbie" ("The King of Fogs”).

Follow the ageing rooms of Salame Felino and Parmigiano-Reggiano, enriched by shades and decorations, until you reach the last stop of the tour: a very modern production lab. Along this tour, the visitors are guided with passion by our personnel and introduced to the art of cured meats.

Visits to The Firm

Tasting Experience: Oriented education to Flavours.

La Fattoria di Parma organises tours into the production area, where Culatello, stronghino and salame are made.

The Territory

There is a Land, blessed by God, placed between the Appennini and the PO river, where a tongue of 30 KM of soil makes possible the production of some of the most famous Italian Delicacy.

Our grandparents called this piece of land that runs simultaneously with the longest Italian River, which is divided in two by the Via Emilia, the ancient Roman road built to stop the northern populations from invading the Roman Empire, "Bassa” or Low Land.

For our generation, English-speaking people, it is The Food Valley, the sacred heart of Pianura Padana, comprehensive of the provinces of Piacenza, Modena, Reggio Emilia and Parma.

In those lands, where once upon a time there were just woods and marshland, Cistercians Monks built Abbeys where they put together the knowledge and the hard work of multiples farmers and their families, with the products that were easy to grow here, to make the famous Parmigiano Reggiano.

In this very same place, pork meat is cured to make Culatello and Prosciutto di Parma, Coppa and Salame di Felino, Strolghino and Pancetta.

The Culatello, "The King of Fogs”, was born in the territory most close to the PO river, where the fog, that anywhere else is mentioned as a plague, here became a blessing: without it running thru the basements, making possible to moulds to grow, The Culatello would just have been a random cured piece of meat left aging.

In this unique land, where since the very beginning people were fighting against mother nature to make possible the growth of its own products, our history teaches that since the time in which the Great Giulio Caesar was Emperor, fighting the Gallic wars and bringing back his legions to spend the winter in the Pianura Padana, native people of this land were already working pork meat on large scale.

SalAmeria ®

Most people that are passing by the ancient Via Emilia, finding on their way the Shop belonging to La Fattoria di Parma, where they can try all the different products produced here, haven’t yet tasted all the delicacies that the Firm produces: some people arrive from the nearby regions, some from far away and they heard about Culatello, Strolghino and Culatta from people that have already tried them and told them about the perfume, the texture, the pleasure they encountered.

Those stories reached foreign countries and became myths. There are experiences that can’t be told, must be tried! The SalAmeria was born with this intent: give everybody a taste of this unforgettable experience, see how was born, explain thru tasting tours why is so famous.

Imagine to visit a 150 years old cellar, where products like Culatello, Culatta, Strolghini, Salami, Fiocchetti were left ageing, cuddled from the autumnal fog and the summery hot spell… now imagine to try all those delicacies, learning how to distinguish them from the shape, the flavour, the colour… learn the complexity of the taste that a slice of Culatello give you when you take it with your bare hand to eat, maybe accompanied with a good glass of Fortana…

The SalAmeria is all of this: not just a restaurant or a quick pit stop. It is a unique experience that give you the chance of trying every single product from the most famous Italian Cured Meats.

It will be easy then to recognise them, choose the favourite one and buy it for yourself or as a gift, from our Shop.