Breme Red Onion - ENG

Dolcissima is a particular variety of red onion typical of the territory of Breme. In this product De.C.O. are contained not only nutritional qualities, but also cultural traditions of identity of  a little piece of Lombardy.

The peculiarities of the Breme De.Co. Red Onion, that make it unique, thanks also to the alluvial land where it is cultivated, are:

• - Sweetness, crunchy, great digestibility, flattened shape, intense red color, mean weight 700-800 gr (2013 record: 2,32 Kg).
• - The farming surface is about 12 hectares, where 250’000 Kg are produced every year.
• - The producers are only about 20 people, that in the last years have double their production thanks to Breme municipality promotion and to the “Onion festival” organized by Polisportiva Bremese Association.
• - The farming process takes place nowadays in the same way held by Novalesa monks one thousand of year ago, without using any modern machine or chemical treatments. All the weeds are manually eradicated.

The “De.Co. Red Onion”, thanks to its peculiarity, can be also used to make jam and mostarda, delicious if you eat it along with cheese or meat, but also in sweet-and-sour, in cakes and desserts. Since some years ago the Red Onion is exported in England, Germany and Switzerland. In 2018 a good opportunity arises to introduce it on an important Hong Kong food chain.

To keep in mind: the “Red Onion Festival” organized by Polisportiva Bremese Association, that takes place in Breme every year from the second to the third week of June, where thousands of people coming from the North of Italy reach Breme to taste the famous menu “From starters to dessert”, all made with the Red Onion.

In June 2008 the Breme municipality gave to the Red Onion the brand DeCo (i.e. Designation of Town Origin) to identify and preserve its unicity.

Since November 2014 it is registered in the Italian National Register that collects all the ancient horticulture varieties that must be preserved. The Red Onion is the first variety registered in the whole Lombardia Region.

The Breme Red Onion have been one of the protagonists at Expo 2015 in Milano, thanks to the Vigevano city section of Slow Food association. Since 2014 the Red Onion is part of the “Paniere Pavese”, promoted by the Pavia Region.

2018 road map: start the procedure with Pavia University and Lombardia Region to take the brand DOP, with the aim to guarantee the consumer much more on the Red Onion Breme origin. Because the “true” Breme Red Onion is exclusively cultivated in the alluvial lands, whose maps are preserved at the Breme municipality.

Some properties coming from the Red Onion consumption: full of vitamins and mineral salts, natural antibiotic, antioxidant, depurative and diuretic, it helps the circulatory system functionality, tonic, it reduces the bad cholesterol level, other …..