The real Goose salami

My name is Gianluca Bellazzi and I am a fervent supporter of the traditional goose salami produced exclusively with lean goose meat without pork meat added as in the olden days.

I come from a family of craftsmen and artisans and thanks to the sacrifices of my parents I got a degree in Science of Agriculture from the University of Milan, oriented towards the evaluation of processed products of animal origin. For ten years I worked with passion in quality control and process control in a food factory. It was a job that through research and development, gave me great personal satisfaction and allowed me to gain a lot of experience in good quality food production.

In the meantime I was able to appreciate the quality management systems and so I decided to make a great change in my life and started my own business.

From the beginning I realized that my technical skills were only the starting point and that they would not be enough to develop a modern and efficient company. That is why I spent more than a year to train and become a Lead Auditor for the most important quality management systems in the food sector (ISO 9001, IFS, BRC, ISO 22000, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001). To this I added the research on both Kosher and Halal certifications.

During this time, from reading newspaper articles, I learned about pure goose salami: an ancient product typical of my area, Lomellina. A  delicate salami that can be consumed by the entire world population, even by those who do not eat pork because it is obtained only with goose meat. So at the end of 2012 I made my decision and founded the Oca Sforzesca company of which I am currently the CEO.

In the early years I tried to learn about the state of the art of goose salami and to enhance the tradition that our territory has fortunately handed us down for centuries. Handmade products, although of great value, are often not suitable for today's gourmet consumer. So I decided to embrace the challenge of eliminating some defects and at the same time enhance the elegance of goose meat.

I confess that it was not easy because my craftsman, even if willing and in good faith, "rowed against" my plans, answering me back that "it has always done so". With the evident conviction that food quality could not be improved and that everything was immutable. Sometimes it seemed to me that I was fighting against windmills, but even with the ups and downs I did not lose hope.

Then step by step and with great difficulty the first encouraging results began to arrive. Of course they were small improvements, but we started to get a glimpse of what a gourmet goose salami suitable for today's consumer would look like.

That day GOLIARDO was officially born – the real Goose Salami made as in the olden days.