Historical photo of one of the Aspromonte black pigs, used for the breed’s recovery in 1995.

The black Aspromonte pig is the native pig of the southern Calabrian Apennines.

At the end of the 1990s, there were very few black Aspromonte pigs and the species seemed destined for extinction.

The turning point came in 1995: Monsignor Bregantini, Bishop of Locri-Gerace, founded the Cooperativa Valle del Bonamico together with a group of young shepherds from Platì and San Luca and thus began the definitive recovery of the breed.

Today, the ancient black pig grazes wild in its habitat of origin, Aspromonte, where the nature of the woods is impervious, uncontaminated, virgin.

Its primordial morphology has remained unchanged to testify to the purity of the species: strong, rustic, mighty, with two pendulous appendages under the throat and, in the male specimen, a mane.

It feeds freely on acorns, chestnuts, roots, tubers, mushrooms and the other fruits of the undergrowth.

All these characteristics make it different from other Calabrian black pigs and can be found in the aromas and flavours of our hams and salamis.