What is Recebo Iberico ham?
Iberian recebo ham is a designation of the 2007 Iberian ham quality standard.
The current Iberian ham standard (RD 4/2014) does not contemplate this commercial designation.
Therefore, today this way of naming Iberian ham is not legal.
It is no longer in use.
We explain a little about what Recebo Ham used to be called and why this designation no longer exists.
Main characteristics of recebo ham
For the name Recebo, Article 5 of RD 1469/2007 indicated that it could be used for those products from animals that, after increasing their weight to a certain extent in the open range, their feed could be supplemented by the addition of fodder. Of course, not everything was valid.
The average weight required was between 92 and 115 kilograms, with an entry date between October 1 and January 15 and slaughter between December 15 and May 15, with a minimum weight of 108 kg.
Therefore, to say that recebo ham was an acorn ham that was finished with feed is very vague and misleading.
Possibly, that is one of the reasons why at present this denomination does not exist in the 2014 Iberian quality standard.
Objectives of the Iberian ham quality standard: Royal Decree 4/2104The current Iberian ham standard, Royal Decree 4/2104, was created with several very clear objectives:
- To facilitate the knowledge of the Iberian product and its characteristics by consumers
- Improving the racial purity of Iberian pigs
- Establish clear labeling and designations for all Iberian products to avoid confusion for consumers.
- Establish control mechanisms for traceability and strict compliance with the standard.
There will be detractors and defenders of the current quality standard for Iberian ham, but the fact is that thanks to RD 4/2014today, the guarantees and traceability control of Iberian products are total.The previous Iberian ham quality standard, the 2007 RD 1469/2007 established four sales designations according to the type of feed:
- Acorn-fed or finished in the mountains.
- Recebo or finished in recebo.
- Field bait
- Bait
The current quality standard for Iberian pigs establishes commercial designations that take into account feed, racial purity and handling:
- 100% Iberian acorn-fed acorn – black seal
- Acorn-fed acorn 50% or 75% Iberian – red seal
- From free-range fattening (50%, 75% or 100% Iberian) – green seal
- Fattened (50%, 75% or 100% Iberian) – white seal
Why is recebo ham outside the Iberian ham quality standard?
In our humble opinion, we understand that recebo Iberian ham is eliminated from the current Iberian ham standard of January 2014, among other reasons, because it favored consumer confusion and, to a certain extent, fraud.
Is it possible to buy Recebo Iberian Ham nowadays?
The answer is simple and categorical: NO.
Because that trade name no longer exists.
If you are looking for something similar, we, with all the precautions in the world, could recommend you to buy a 100% Iberian Cebo Campo ham as the most similar, according to the current standard, to what was once a recebo Iberian ham.
We insist, it is not possible to buy a recebo ham, we should not talk about recebo Iberian ham.
Why are we talking about the 100% Iberian cebo campo ham?
A 100% Iberian animal, due to its quality, is always going to be fed with acorns and managed in the “montanera”.
It does happen, because pigs are not machines, that a 100% Iberian pig that is in Montanera on March 31 has not fattened enough for slaughter.
At that moment, it would lose the category of Bellota and would go to Cebo Campo.
That is why we say that we only dare to venture that it would resemble something similar to what used to be called Recebo ham, and always assuming that the animal had grazed in Montanera.
In any case, today, if you want a ham from an animal that has eaten acorns, there is only one guarantee of having it: buying a ham with a red or black seal.
The rest is pure conjecture, with no official traceability system to guarantee it.
Apolo Montero nació en Plasencia, Cáceres, en 1971.
Licenciado en Empresariales por la Universidad de Cádiz, especialidad Comercio Exterior.
Amplió sus estudios con un PID por el IESE Business School y el Programa Superior de Negocio Digital de ICEMD – ESIC Business School.
Tras una larga trayectoria en la industria agroalimentaria española y multinacional, en 2018, funda Ibericomio.es
En 2023 es reconocido como Egresado de Honor de la Facultad de CC. Económicas y Empresariales de la Universidad de Cádiz.
