O.P.A.S. (Pig Breeders Product Organization) is the largest product organization in Italy and represents 12% of Italian pig farming, able to breed heavy and medium pigs by planning and diversifying supply chain supplies in favor of commercial distribution requests.
It develops the activity principally in the slaughtering and sale of pigs conferred by the partners (who are obliged to confer at least 75% of their production according to the Community regulation of product organizations). OPAS members come from Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, Piedmont, Veneto and Marche, regions known to be Italy’s livestock vocation. OPAS carries out its activities in the Carpi (MO) plant.
Numbers – 75 farms with an average farm size of 30 thousand pigs and 70 hectares cultivated, a sow park represented by over 50 thousand sows out of a national total of 417 thousand, fertility for the average sow 25 piglets, a unique genetic center, feeding of pigs of associates dry standardized according to dop regulations (corn, wheat, soy barley, with 60 per cent self-produced and 40 per cent purchased by Opas in Italy and abroad with land contracting and coverage of cereal prices through the use of futures markets), in-house analysis laboratory for the certification of raw materials quality, 5 regions, 1,500,000 pigs bred each year, 50 audits a year by certification bodies, 560 employees.
In just 4 regions of the Po Valley, Lombardy, Emilia Romagna, Piedmont and Veneto, three-quarters of the national heritage is concentrated, which is raised in about 12,000 companies. In this area the average size of the companies associated with OPAS is considerably higher than the national average. Even at the provincial level there are 5 areas of greatest interest: Mantua with 1,260,000 heads, Brescia with 1,171,000 heads, Cremona with 785,000 heads, Reggio Emilia with 384,000 heads and Parma with 167,000 heads. This means that OPAS with over one million commercialized pigs represents 12% of the national pig production.
The mission of O.P.A.S. is to create a product that meets the needs of today’s customers (Transformers, large retailers) who increasingly want to be guaranteed on the organoleptic and nutritional qualities of fresh meat. As part of the strategy set up in OPAS, a strong synergy has been developed between the end customer, transformer, slaughterhouse and farmer, in order to enhance the production of the pig production, bred and slaughtered in Italy by fully applying a valorization approach based on “supply chain integration “from farm to table”.
The slaughtering and storage plant located in Carpi has a total surface area of approximately 92 thousand square meters of which about 25 thousand are covered, a slaughtering capacity of 480 heads / hour, a storage capacity at zero degrees of 780 tons and minus 18 degrees equal to 1,200 tons. In Italy, OPAS is the pig slaughtering compamailto:opasinjapan@gmail.comny that processes the largest number of animals (about 24,000 pigs a week) and manages the largest number of supply chains, with production volumes constantly growing.
The plant was acquired by Filiera Si. The OPAS operation in Carpi has, among other things, allowed the ex-Italcarni plant to be brought back to life, giving work to more than 600 people and restarting the entire economic and social life of the area: a benefit for the whole Italian pig farming but also for the entire economy of the interested area and of the Emilia Romagna Region.
The slaughterhouse in Carpi, where the slaughtering service business is developed, is in possession of the certifications to export pig products also to the USA, Custom Union (Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Belarus), China, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, Mexico, South Korea, Colombia. In particular, the most representative supply chains are: Coop Italia, Barilla, Mark & Spencer (G.B.), Suini light, Biologico, Tesco (G.B.), Whole Foods (G.B.), Despar, Metro, Conad.
