Acta geographica Slovenica, 62-2, 2022, 75–85
FROM BRANDING TO SOLIDARITy:
THE COVID-19 IMPACT ON MARkETING
STRACHíTUNT CHEESE FROM VAL
TALEGGIO, ITALy
Cristina Grasseni
Curdling milk for Strachítunt production.
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Cristina Grasseni, From branding to solidarity: The COVID-19 impact on marketing Strachítunt cheese from Val Taleggio, Italy
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3986/AGS.10577
UDC: 39:339.138:637.3(450.2/.4)»2020«
COBISS: 1.01
Cristina Grasseni1
From branding to solidarity: The COVID-19 impact on marketing Strachítunt
cheese from Val Taleggio, Italy
ABSTRACT: Branding, labelling and certification are the principal instruments for marketing heritage cheese
in the Italian Alps. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has put considerable strain on these tools. In Val
Taleggio, where the Protected Designation of Origin cheese Strachítunt is made, the cooperative of pro-
ducers suffered a breakdown in access to markets during the lockdown of March–May 2020. Their strategy
was to appeal directly to consumers, connecting digitally with solidarity economy networks such as Gruppi
di Acquisto Solidale (Solidarity Purchase Groups). Building on long-term ethnography, the article shows
how this appeal brought to the surface a shared discourse and understanding of proximity and solidari-
ty, which is not usually employed in the language of certification and labelling.
KEY WORDS: cheese, geographical indications, solidarity economy networks, heritage, Northern Italy
Od blagovne znamke do solidarnosti: vpliv COVID-19 na trženje sira Strachítunt iz
Val Taleggia v Italiji
POVZETEK: Znamčenje, označevanje in certificiranje so glavni instrumenti za trženje tradicionalno proizve-
denega sira v italijanskih Alpah. Pandemija COVID-19 je močno vplivala na ta orodja. V Val Taleggiu,
kjer izdelujejo sir Strachítunt z zaščiteno označbo porekla, je zadruga proizvajalcev med zaprtjem od marca
do maja 2020 utrpela prekinitev dostopa do trgov. Njihova strategija je bila neposredno nagovoriti potrošnike
in se digitalno povezati z omrežji solidarnostnega gospodarstva kot je Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale
(Solidarnostne nakupovalne skupine). Članek na temelju dolgoročne etnografije pokaže, kako je ta poziv spod-
budil razpravo o razumevanju bližine in solidarnosti, ki v jeziku certificiranja in označevanja nista običajna.
KLJUČNE BESEDE: sir, geografske označbe, mreže solidarnostnega gospodarstva, dediščina, severna Italija
The article was submitted for publication on January 13th, 2022.
Uredništvo je prejelo prispevek 13. januarja 2022.
76
1 Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands
c.grasseni@fsw.leidenuniv.nl (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4545-1978)
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1 Introduction: Branding for food (re)localization
The article rethinks the links between brands, labels, certification on the one hand, and territorial devel-
opment and heritage-making in agricultural production on the other. It has been sufficiently demonstrated
in international and interdisciplinary literature, that geographical indications do not reflect pre-existing
differences, but instead establish and reify them (Coombe, Ives and Huizinga 2014; May et al 2017; Ledinek
Lozej 2021). However, for the cheese-making industry of the alpine region, cheese continues to be »the
chosen pivot of broader epistemologies that are acted on the ground, mediating personal, local and scalar
levels of agency« (Grasseni 2017, 4). In other words, cheese is »one of the essential agricultural products,
not only in the daily diet but, above all, also a highly valued (artisanal or industrial) market product« (Ledinek
Lozej 2021, 143).
There is a globally observed movement »from local food to localized food«: Holt and Amilien (2007)
outlined the co-constitutive relationship between local food products and systems and processes of local-
ization, explaining how the latter exists in reaction to the race to the bottom and the standardization of
the global food system, aiming instead towards a »value-based, territorially embedded agrifood system«
(Bowen and De Master 2011, 75). As Guthman (2007, 456) explains »it is the retention of value that eases
tendencies of intensification and exploitation and thus mitigates neoliberalism’s race to the bottom«. However,
for precisely that reason, labeled, certified, or simply locally sourced heritage foods are not as accessible –
in terms of price – to the average consumer, and some critics, including Guthman (2007) go as far as con-
sidering voluntary food labels as forms of neoliberal governance or as a museification of food cultures –
what Barham (2003, 132) has termed »turning rural areas into living museums for privileged urban vis-
itors«.
Building on such critique to the »French terroir strategy«, anthropologists Heath and Meneley Heath
(2007, 593) underline how food and drink are »localized instances of large-scale spatial and temporal process-
es and as cultural-material markers of power/knowledge« and conclude that »claims to distinction based
on tradition or terroir are also imbricated in global industrial production and distribution«. Considering
in particular the controversy around foie-gras, they notice how »the invocation of place by foie gras farm-
ers and vendors also links landed aristocracy and their vintage wine, aged port, or artisanal cheeses to what
the French refer to as the terroir« (Heath and Meneley 2007, 596). Cultural anthropologists focus in par-
ticular on the perspectives of the social actors involved in the economic chain. As Cavanaugh and Shankar
(2014, 51) have investigated, »linguistic and material work« on the part of producers is needed to »create
authentic goods against those who question and contest their efforts«.
This article investigates how the effort of branding can be fluid and dynamic, adaptable to important
parameters such as logistics and accessibility of the food market for the consumers. These were sudden-
ly transformed during the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, it will be argued how the discourse and
appeal of local mountain cheese has significantly shifted from one of singularity (Siniscalchi 2009) to one
of proximity (Grasseni 2014) during the COVID-19 crisis. It will be shown how a moral discourse of belong-
ing transpires from the communication strategies undertaken by the Val Taleggio heritage cheese makers
under the emergency circumstances of the pandemic in March–May 2020. The goal of this cultural analy-
sis is to evaluate the impact of this discourse on heritage-making practices and processes, including the
potential for including more actors in local economic networks.
2 Research area and methodology: The Strachítunt PDO case study
The article’s case study comes from the heritage cheese industry of the mountains in the Italian province
of Bergamo, specifically Val Taleggio, which is home to two Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) cheeses:
Taleggio and Strachítunt. Strachítunt PDO is exclusively made in the area comprising the municipalities
of Vedeseta (20 km2), Taleggio (46.6 km2), Blello (2.2 km2) and Gerosa (10 km2) for a total production area
according to the municipalities’ official data of less than 80 sq. km. Since February 2014, the municipal-
ity of Gerosa has been merged with the larger municipality of Brembilla, thus creating the municipality
of Val Brembilla. This administrative merger has not changed the original protocol and area of produc-
tion (https://www.strachitunt.it).
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The production area of Taleggio PDO overlaps partly with that of Strachítunt cheese, as both originate
from Val Taleggio. In fact the production technique of Taleggio, which earned its name from the valley,
achieved the distinction of a DOC (it. Denominazione di Origine Controllata, eng. Controlled Denomination
of Origin) in 1954, and was then equated to the European PDO denomination in 1994 (Ministero delle
Risorse Agricole, Alimentari e Forestali 1994). However, its vast area of protected denomination covers
most of the Northern Italian plains - specifically in Lombardy (Bergamo, Brescia, Como, Cremona, Lecco,
Lodi, Milano, Monza & Brianza, Pavia), Piedmont (Novara, Verbano-Cusio-Ossola) and in the region Veneto
(Treviso) (https://www.taleggio.it/).
A Strachítunt consortium of dairy-farmers and cheese-refiners aiming to establish a PDO in Val Taleggio
began collaborating in October 2002, initially under the auspices of Slow Food (Grasseni 2017, 122–128;
Strachitunt … 2022). The goal was to claim a Protected Denomination of Origin that would have only Val
Taleggio as area of production for Strachítunt, because the producers felt that a broader production area
would only favour the interests of lowland industrial producers and not the livelihoods of small and medi-
um enterprises in the mountains (Grasseni 2017). A simple comparison between areas of production of
Taleggio and Strachítunt show how minuscule Taleggio cheese’s homonymous valley is, vis-à-vis the vast
area where Taleggio PDO can be produced (Figure 1).
It took the Strachítunt consortium more than eleven years to obtain the PDO, mostly due to legal appeals
from other producers in the neighbouring lowlands, who claimed that they too historically mastered the
Strachítunt craft, because its recipe had been circulating among transhumant cheesemakers for genera-
tions (Grasseni 2017). Despite these hurdles, Strachítunt was eventually registered as a PDO cheese in March
2014 with EU regulation (CE) n. 244/2014. It was further modified in March 2021 (Regione Lombardia
2021). The production protocols (disciplinari di produzione) of Italian PDO cheeses can be consulted on
the web site of the The Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies (it. Ministero delle politiche
agricole alimentari e forestali).
Taleggio DOP
Val Taleggio
PIEDMONT
LOMBARDY VENETO
Figure 1: Comparison of the production area of Taleggio PDO and of Val Taleggio (De Musso n.d., https://www.geoportale.regione.lombardia.it).
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To make Strachítunt, the producers’ cooperative Sant’Antonio di Vedeseta gathers and transforms milk
exclusively from active dairy farms in Val Taleggio and Gerosa. Beyond being a member of the produc-
tion consortium for Strachítunt, the producers’ cooperative of Val Taleggio gathers and transforms the milk
of the last five remaining dairy farms in Val Taleggio, plus three new farms in Gerosa, and enrolls the cheese-
maturing firms of Val Taleggio as associates too. The cooperative specializes in producing a raw-milk PDO
Taleggio, matured by the valley’s cheese refiner CasArrigoni for at least two months, conforming to the
PDO protocol of production for Taleggio cheese. The fresher variant of the same cheese, called Stracchino
di Vedeseta, is also produced with raw milk in the same cooperative and matured for a minimum of 35
days (thus not a PDO production).
This case study builds on a long-term ethnography of heritage cheese-making in the Bergamo province
(Grasseni 2009; 2017). Empirical data over the short period of time covered for this study includes par-
ticipant observation in the organization and follow up of a two-day conference in collaboration with the
Strachítunt consortium in February 2020, to which the author participated as convenor and round-table
moderator. Remote (digital) ethnography in social networks (Facebook groups, WhatsApp groups, email
lists) was conducted during the 2020 lockdown (March–May 2020). Formal (audio and video recorded)
and informal interviews were conducted in person in Val Taleggio and Bergamo in February 2020, then
the summer of 2020, 2021 and spring of 2022 (with twenty people, among which the president of the pro-
ducers cooperative Sant’Antonio of Vedeseta, managers and employees of the two main cheese refiners in
Val Taleggio, the cheesemaker of the valley’s dairy cooperative, representatives of the Solidarity Purchase
Groups network who organized collective bulk-buying from the cooperative during the COVID-19 emer-
gency, including the organizer of the initiative Market and Citizenship, local historians, cattle breeders,
representatives of environmental associations and short food chains, faith and justice groups, the president
of the Strachítunt consortium, the organizer and ideator of the Strachítunt conference, scholars of solidar-
ity economies and of environmental sciences). These conversations were complemented by participant
observation during public events such as film-screenings, cheese-tasting events, and guided tours of the
cheese-making and cheese-refining facilities. Empirical data is complemented by analysis of documentary
sources such as regional and EU regulations published online and in legal bulletins, product specifications
such as production protocols (it. disciplinari di produzione) which are reported online by the relevant pro-
duction consortia, by the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies (MIPAAF), by the European
Commission EU Geographical Indications Register eAmbrosia, or in the Region Lombardy bulletin (it.
Bollettino Ufficiale). Secondary sources such as press releases, (digital) newspaper articles and professional
magazines also integrated empirical and primary sources. When statements are not sourced, the relevant
information has been obtained in personal conversations and ethnographic observation (author’s field notes).
3 Results of ethnographic observation
This section offers results of ethnographic observation during two phases: firstly, the Strachítunt confer-
ence in February 2020 reflected critically on the added value of protected designations for the preservation
of territorial economies in mountain valleys such as Val Taleggio. This critical reflection is contextualized
within a broader picture of networks and alliances among private entrepreneurs and public institutions,
which the local press recorded and commented on. Secondly, digital ethnography and follow-up inter-
views are employed to record the marketing discourse that the Val Taleggio producers employed to by-pass
the March–May 2020 COVID-19 lockdown.
3.1 Conference and networks
The conference »Strachítunt: From family value to resource for the territory« (it. Strachítunt: Da valore
per la famiglia a risorsa per il territorio), held over three days on 21st, 22nd and 23rd February, 2020 staged
a significant debate about whether the system of labelling and certification that characterizes production
consortia is sufficient to promote territorial economies – particularly in Val Taleggio. 
The presentations and conference were located in Val Brembilla, while it was accompanied by several
laboratories and guided visits in Val Taleggio, including to the dairy cooperative and to the main cheese refin-
ers of the valley. The conference was also an occasion to showcase the dairy cooperative to the broader public
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(the curdling session was also recorded and broadcast on local television while it was being presented and
explained to the conference visitors). Additionally, the cooperative shop opened for the conference and
the valley’s cattle breeders opened their cowsheds to the registered audience (Figures 2–5).
Among the invitees, representatives of the association Market and Citizenship explained the impor-
tance of »informal networks of production and consumption«, »practices of active citizenship and social
economy, community supported agriculture, short food chains and local food policy«. These are often dis-
connected topics from the discourse and practice of marketing heritage cheese. They are often overlooked
in the glossy brochures and Made in Italy stands which celebrate instead local identities and excellence of
culinary production. This intervention instead proposed a privileged relationship between small scale pro-
ducers and solidarity economy networks, particularly Italy’s solidarity purchase groups (Gruppi di
Acquisto Solidale, GAS). However, during the conference, one could not notice too much synergy between
the representatives of the entrepreneurial world of PDO consortia and producers’ association on the one
hand, and the representatives of critical consumers with their requests to activate direct and short food
chains with solidarity economy networks. One of the reasons given in a round table was that, even for a medi-
um-sized consortium, to pay one person to staff a stand at a farmers’ market for an entire day, is not an
attractive investment because of the likely lack of returns (especially if one considers the transport costs,
the expected intensive communication and personal engagement, and the loss of value of the merchan-
dise displayed vis-à-vis the small quantities than usually get sold in these venues).
One of the take-away message provided by the representative of Assolatte (it. Associazione Italiana
Lattiero-Casearia), the industrial association of dairies (milk and cheese producers) was that consortia for
geographic indications continue to play a key role for the Italian economy. Among the figures mentioned
are the one indicated on the home page of the associations’ official website (https://www.assolatte.it) with
16,2 billion euro turnover and over 100,000 jobs, the dairy sector is of paramount importance in Italy and
abroad, exporting 40% of production for a value of almost 3 billion euro. A number of public institutions
and professional associations dynamically participate in networks and alliances around the trade of cow-
breeding and cheese-making, for example local administrations such as municipal councils and mayors,
Figure 2: A cameraman records the curdling of the milk for Strachítunt
production, Strachítunt wheels are in the foreground.
Figure 3: Cooperative shop displaying the Strachítunt conference program
on the door.
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Figure 4: Cooperative shop selling several cheese made at the cooperatives including Strachítunt.
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breeders’ associations such as APA (it. Associazione Promozione Allevamento, eng. Association for the
Promotion of Breeding), farmers’ unions such as Coldiretti and their agricultural extension services, cham-
bers of commerce and tourist boards. The most important events or funded projects profile prominently
in the local press as well as in websites, flyers, and videos. For example the yearly festival Forme hosts pub-
lic exhibitions and professional workshops, and hosted the World Cheese Award in October 2019.
In the province of Bergamo alone, one finds nine out of Italy’s fifty PDO cheese consortia, includ-
ing that for Strachítunt, and four Slow Food presidia. They are listed in Italian and English under the
institutional website of Bergamo as UNESCO Creative City (https://www.bergamocittacreativa.it/). This
recent recognition of Bergamo as Creative City for gastronomy, on a par with Alba and Parma, was sought
and obtained in 2019 within the international framework of UNESCO (https://en.unesco.org). UNESCO’s
Creative Cities is a  networking program aimed to support designated cities to develop existing
economies based on their traditional strengths, gastronomy in this case. In Italy there are another nine
»creative cities« namely Bologna and Pesaro for music, Fabriano, Carrara, and Biella for crafts, Rome
for cinema, Turin for design, Milan for literature. In the case of Bergamo, its »Cheese Valleys« were pro-
filed as a keystone for UNESCO recognition, building on the existing alliance among local production
consortia of seven cheeses made in the Bergamasque mountains called »Princes of the Orobie [moun-
tains]« (https://www.bergamocittacreativa.it/). The relevant Memorandum of Agreement (it. Protocollo
d’intesa) counts 34 partners among municipal and province administrations, boards of conservation parks,
Local Action Groups of EU development projects, the Alpine Corps Association and offices for tourist
promotion.
3.2 Online marketing strategies during the COVID-19 lockdown
Between the end of February and the beginning of March 2020, Lombardy and specifically Bergamo
became a global hotspot of the COVID-19 pandemic. A very strict national lockdown was enforced as
per March 8th, 2020. Travelling and leaving one’s home were forbidden. Practically every movement on
foot or by transportation, public or private, was forbidden expect for health emergencies, the carrying
out of jobs of national interest, and shopping for necessities in the closest outlet or convenience store.
This impeded or discouraged the logistics of distribution and consumption for many small scale producers
such as those of Val Taleggio.
On April 16th, 2020, the dairy cooperative launched a Facebook appeal for online orders. It read (trans-
lated in English): »Do you fancy some cheese? All of our products directly at your home, via refrigerated
courier. Our home delivery service in all of Bergamo and province is already active on Thursdays, and
soon we will launch our e-commerce website to deliver our cheese anywhere in Italy! Write or call to find
out how to place your orders! Let’s stay at home without missing out on good things!« (Cooperativa Agricola
Sant’Antonio, Facebook post April 16th, 2020). The message was accompanied by emoticons as it would
be in a WhatsApp conversation among friends, and linked up to Twitter campaigns about »staying at home«,
»taleggio«, »Val Taleggio«, »staying united while apart« and »let’s cheese«. There was such an overwhelming
(online) response that two days after, the same Facebook page asked customers to only make orders by
phone because there was too much correspondence to look after. After a week, the dairy coop benefited
indeed from an e-shop portal, orchestrated through the efforts of the main valley’s cheese refining entre-
preneur.
The campaign continued also throughout April thanks to the local (digital) press, which reiterated how
due to COVID-19 restrictions, local producers from the Bergamasque mountains risked throwing away
their produce (Invernizzi 2020). The network of Solidarity Purchase Groups of the province of Bergamo
RETEGAS intervened at this point, also thanks to personal contacts made at the February conference.
Through informal chains of word-of-mouth and email lists, they activated the solidarity of individuals and
networks within and beyond the province of Bergamo, being prepared to buy heritage cheese such as
Strachítunt and other types of cheese produced by the cooperative of Val Taleggio, despite a conjuncture
that was making it difficult for these commodities to make it to the market (and thus would warrant a lower
price). The cooperative’s thanks appeared on June 4th, 2020 on the Facebook page of RETEGAS, acknowl-
edging having received orders from Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia Romagna, Rome and Neaples (Rete Gas
Bergamo, Facebook post on June 4th, 2020).
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4 Discussion
The ethnographic anecdotes gathered at the Strachítunt conference, the opinions confirmed by stakeholders
with in-person conversations, and the analysis of digital discourse in the local press and Facebook reflect
important changes in the marketing and communication style of the Val Taleggio producers. These emerged
during the COVID-19 emergency, but have been anticipated by forward-looking networking strategies.
The notion and semantic implications of heritage cheese have shifted from one stressing the importance
of certification and labelling to one implying the primacy of solidarity and »proximity« (Grasseni 2014). Local
farmers and entrepreneurs are portrayed as in need of help, thus the premium price asked for heritage cheese
is now solidarity-driven, rather than based on their »singularity« as commodities (Siniscalchi 2009).
The vocabulary and register chosen by the producers’ cooperative for their online appeal were infor-
mal and non-elitist, thus broadening and simplifying the language of its distribution and not even mentioning
consortia and geographic indications. As part of this broadening of its audience, the cooperative of pro-
ducers underlined that they produce not only PDO cheese such as Strachítunt and Taleggio, but a very broad
range of dairy products which »support breeders, cheesemakers and cheese refiners« since the eighties (Bassi
2020). The word and notion of solidarity featured prominently in this campaign: »it was the collabora-
tion and great solidarity of the people of Bergamo and Lombardy to support decisively the producers of
this territory throughout that terrible period of March and April 2020«, commented the president of the
valley’s cooperative. »This emergency taught us once again what teamwork means, especially for a small
and fragile sector like ours« (Bassi 2020).
The February 2020 Strachítunt conference was a springboard to reflect on how to expand and nur-
ture alliances and networks beyond production consortia, for example involving societal stakeholders in
the name of sustainability, locality, and food sovereignty – as advocated by the representative of the asso-
ciation Market and Citizenship at the conference. For example, by profiling its »cheese valleys« to join the
UNESCO Creative Cities network, Bergamo underlines its dairy tradition – notably not only that of the
mountains, but also the more industrialized and well-connected dairying lowlands. So-called intangible
cultural heritage is thus politically tangible, connecting knowledge economies with value-creation accord-
ing to the semantics of (culinary) appreciation.
As mentioned, Val Brembilla includes one of the production localities of Strachítunt, Gerosa, which has
merged into the municipality of Val Brembilla. While the production protocol of Strachitunt has not changed,
this has implications in terms of new potential alliances for Val Taleggio and its cheese-making economy
to the neighbouring, more populous, better connected and economically significant Val Brembilla. In fact,
while the municipalities of Val Taleggio (Taleggio and Vedeseta) count 296 and 193 residents respectively,
plus the minuscule municipality of Blello (73 residents), the population of Val Brembilla counts 4249 res-
idents (of which 360 in the former municipality of Gerosa, according to municipalities’ official demographic
data updated to May 2020. The conference organizers wanted to offer a well-orchestrated show of force of
all the socio-economic actors involved directly or indirectly in the consortium’s strategies in Val Taleggio,
namely the dairy cooperative, individual dairy farming families, the cheese refiners of the valley, but also
the municipalities of Val Taleggio and its neighbouring Val Brembilla, and their communities at large.
Grasseni (2017) argued that making heritage cheese is a dynamic process of meaning-making, in which
heritage synergizes with other concepts (such as tipicità) to function as a marker of distinction. In the case
of the new marketing style triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, the language of proximity, combined
with underlining the small scale of local operations, served the purpose not of guarding and certifying
production boundaries, but to act directly in solidarity with producers. This adds to recent scholarship
about »local food systems« (LFS), by underlining how the perceived meaning of LFS is of paramount impor-
tance in solidarity economies, and not only their perceived advantages per se (such as heathyness, higher
value, social and financial support to farmers and local economies, community building, sustainability;
Enthoven and Van den Broeck 2021).
The development of a register of communication based on solidarity in the online promotion of Val
Taleggio’s cheeses during COVID-19 points toward the significance of proximity, not only in geographi-
cal terms, but also in relational terms, in consumers’ appreciation. This adds to existing qualitative and
quantitative analysis of consumers’ perception of the preferability of local food systems, which tend to focus
more on their objective characteristics such as healthiness, affordability, traceability etc. (Merlino et al. 2022, 9).
A recent comparative survey conducted across 13 countries (Nemes et al. 2021, 593) found that the impact
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of COVID-19 on alternative and local food systems (ALFS) meant an increase in »innovations and adap-
tations« that enabled them »to extend their scope and engage new actors«, thus in effect »upscaling«. While
the urgency of relocalizing (at least some of) the supply chain became evident in times of lockdown because
of the stalling global production, »bottom-up participatory initiatives and the everyday practices of ‘ordi-
nary’ citizens and social entrepreneurs« became more appreciated, argue the authors (Nemes et al. 2021,
592). This argument comes mainly from a point of view which compounds small-scale and local food pro-
ducers with social and alternative entrepreneurship, which is misleading because the two do not necessarily
share the same interests and needs, as it emerged during the mentioned debates during the Strachítunt con-
ference. Secondly, if ALFS benefitted, supermarket chains with authorized entry and delivery schemes, and
multinational online providers such as Amazon reaped the most benefits through increased digital and
captive trade. However, local food producers benefited from more attention in media and press (especially
thanks to their connection with concerns about health, diet and safety), so that their very existence, skill
and struggles found more space in mainstream discourse.
This is significant for the Italian food sales economy where 18% of farms use direct sales as their main
sales channel for 90–100% of production (Nemes et al 2021, 593). In the case of the Strachítunt Facebook
appeal, direct sales did no longer mean staffing stands at farmers’ markets, but substituting the usual logis-
tics chain of mid-size economic players such as Val Taleggio’s cheese refiners. Moreover, direct sales were
traditionally used with raw products, unprocessed harvest, or extremely small operations – not the kind of
consortia which, albeit small in size, strategically weave networks in dynamic alliances with economic and
political partners (such as Strachítunt, for example in association with the network [it.] Principi delle Orobie,
or within UNESCO’s network of Creative Cities, or during expensive and well publicized events such as Forme).
The local dairy industry has significantly invested on certifications and geographic designations, incul-
cating the distinction of mountain cheese in local discourse also with the help of celebrity chefs and food
journalism (Bindi and Grasseni 2014). While the prices of singularity marketing favored discerning cus-
tomers and niche markets, the new turn to the local has taken a democratizing flavor. Now heritage cheese
producers in the Bergamo valleys seek not so much foodies, but rather solidarity buyers and networks of
benign consumers, who are ready to accept hand-crafted, locally sourced foods at a price premium, but
without the stringent, exclusive protocols that were key to define branded or certified heritage cheese. These
developments contribute to qualify heritage cheese in flexible ways, calibrating economic, social and moral
appeals within a broader discourse of solidarity, proximity and locality.
5 Conclusion
Ethnographic analysis based on long-term research of the local dairy industry combined with digital
ethnography and follow-up analysis of the marketing practices of Val Taleggio cheese during the 2020 lock-
down allows us to conclude that the Strachítunt conference of February 2020 marked a significant point
in critical reflections on the added value of protected designations and laid some fundamental steps in
networking more broadly for the preservation of territorial economies in mountain valleys such as Val
Taleggio. This happened within a context of institutional and commercial alliances that had already been
established, but benefitted from the enlargement to solidarity economy networks.
Branding, labelling and certification are traditional tools for the promotion of local products.
Solidarity economy networks had not previously been interested in the marketing of typical products of
the local territory. However, in this case both heritage cheese producers and critical consumers had to com-
promise and converge on the language and practice of salvage-economy, instead of dairy excellence.
This is relevant to debates of branding, labelling and certification as it relativizes the perceived mean-
ing of food heritage. In times of urgency, the (re)localization of food movement revealed to react to issues
of proximity and solidarity (and less to previously paramount issues such as culinary excellence and pro-
tected denomination). Hence, in their marketing and communication, local dairies are now redefining their
practices within a broader discourse of solidarity and proximity.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: Research for this article was carried out during the project ‘Food citizens? Collective
food procurement in European cities: solidarity and diversity, skills and scale’, which has received fund-
ing from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and
innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 724151). English editing by: Jonathan Paul Hankins, Ph.D.
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