Cured pork from Italy will be allowed in U.S.

The United States Department of Agriculture will relax a decades-long ban on the importation of many cured-pork products from some regions of Italy starting May 28, greatly increasing the number and variety of salumi in markets and restaurants here.

On Friday, the department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services announced that an in-country assessment had determined that four regions and two provinces in Northern Italy are free of swine vesicular disease, a dangerous communicable ailment that infects pigs, and that “the importation of pork or pork products from these areas presents a low risk.”

Some pork importers and producers, in this country and in Italy, celebrated the changes, saying they would allow more Italian cured-pork products to make their way to American tables.

But others were unable to judge the ultimate impact of the ruling because the Inspection Services did not specify what standards would now have to be met by Italian producers, nor the expense of meeting them. Despite repeated requests, the agency did not immediately provide more details about its decision.

“Once this rule is in effect, imports will be approved,” said Lyndsay Cole, a spokeswoman for the Inspection Services, referring to the May 28 date, “but some individual shipments may need to be certified in the future.”

Presently, only about half of Italy’s wide variety of cold cuts are approved for import into the United States, according to Italy’s Association of Meat and Cold Cuts Producers. “Up until now, we could only export seasoned ham, for example, like Parma and San Daniele, and cooked ham or mortadella,” said Davide Calderone, the association’s director.

“We will soon be able to export pancetta, salami, coppa — potentially all the Italian cold cuts with no exception,” he added, estimating that this could mean an increase of $9 million to $13 million a year in Italian cold cuts exported to the United States, now put at $90 million.

According to Friday’s ruling, the areas where the salumi ban will be relaxed include the regions of Lombardia, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto and Piemonte, and the provinces of Trento and Bolzano, all in the north. Mr. Calderone said that those regions include some of the country’s most productive slaughterhouses, which will now be able to gain United States certification. “Americans will finally enjoy ‘antipasto all’Italiana’ at its fullest extent,” he said.

But American cold-cuts producers were skeptical, saying that although the Agriculture Department announced a reduction in the threat of swine vesicular disease, “Italian producers will still have to meet U.S.D.A. guidelines for listeria, salmonella and E. coli,” said Marc Buzzio, the president of Salumeria Biellese, a New Jersey producer of artisanal salamis and charcuterie products. “Only certain processing plants in Italy meet the U.S.D.A. guidelines, and those are associated with the larger producers.”

He added: “Now, more cold cuts will be coming in, but the question is, will it be a better product than that of artisanal producers in the United States?”

Since the ban, believed to have been in effect at least since the 1970s after a series of European livestock diseases, Mr. Buzzio estimated that certification for Italian producers cost as much as $100,000, a price beyond many artisanal producers, he said.

“It could open up a new world of Italian salami to the United States,” said Joseph Bastianich, an owner of the Eataly grocery stores in the United States. “Americans have been eating bad salami forever, but now the end is near.”

George Faison, a partner at DeBragga and Spitler, a New Jersey-based meat and poultry retailer, acknowledged that the Italian regions specified by the Agriculture Department produce some of the best salami in the world, but he said that the American importation standards “will determine the quality of what comes over from Italy.”

A future increase in Italian imports, he added, “won’t harm United States artisanal producers, because it will show Americans just how good the quality of their own producers has become.”

Other reaction was more cautious. “As an American, I welcome it with open arms,” said Pat LaFrieda, an owner of Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors in New Jersey, “as long as the Italians import just as many American products.” There are restrictions on exporting American beef and other meats to Italy.

It would also change a way of life for many delicacy-loving tourists and Italian-Americans, who have smuggled in Italian salamis for private consumption, and sometimes for sale.