Craftsmanship, healthy product and ethical relationship with the employees: these are the main characteristics of Latteria del Molise, a young dairy near Campobasso, Molise region, which inherited the experiences and the long traditions of the historical dairies that preceded it.

Everything began with the production of the typical Fiordilatte Mozzarella from Molise, in two different sizes and wrapped in paper, by hand. Later, to satisfy the requests of the customers, the dairy increased the range of mozzarella products and today the firm has a large production plant of about 6000 sq. m. in Mirabello Sannitico. The packaging is automatic, but the production of mozzarella is still made by hand and the relationship with the suppliers is direct.

Soon the firm will open a small dairy in Yucatan, Mexico, to teach to the local cheesemakers all the secrets of the mozzarella from Molise.

Let's discover the story of Latteria del Molise with Alessio Rizzi, the sales manager of the dairy.

When was Latteria del Molise born? And how has it grown through the years?

Latteria del Molise is the latest name of a dairy that was born in 1955, since then the company never moved from the province of Campobasso.
The firm has grown through the years, diversifying the production and introducing gradually the automization of the packaging process to guarantee an higher life and safety to our products.

How many employees has the company? And how many liters milk do you transform every day?

Today we have 15 employees, and 12 of them deal with the production. We hope to work with them until the retirement, as we have done with all the others before them.
Every day we transform 120 up to 150 hectoliters of milk, with different performance which depend on the type of cheese produced: high performances for a fresh cheese and lower for the others.

How would you describe your core business?

The 70% of our production is focused on fresh cheeses such as ricotta, mozzarella, caciotta and scamorza. The remaining part of the production is dedicated to semi-fresh and smoked product. We smoke our cheeses with the traditional method, with wood shaving. Finally, we produce some cheeses for the pizzeria use.

How have you reached such a large range of products?

We listened to our customers's requests  who asked for a larger variety of products and sizes. So were born bocconcini, ciliegine,  traditional mozzarella, traditional scamorza, chicche, small scamorza and ricotta.
In the past our products could have a weight of about 1,5 kg, today we prefer sizes of 50 to 250 gr for a use without wastes. Soon we will have the new packaging that trace completely the provenience of our milk.

Do you transform only local milk?

During the winter we transform only milk from Molise and nearby regions Campania and Abruzzo. During the summer arrives milk even from the north of Italy (Lombardia and Piemonte) where we cooperate with some farms.

Which guarantees do you ask to your suppliers?

We make a double monitoring: we ask to our suppliers to provide us monthly the analysis made by accredited laboratories and then we make a sample check in our company.

You made an agreement with Yucatan in Mexico for the opening of a new dairy, could you explain us the project?

In the Mexican region of Yucatan, the government is investing in order to relaunch the dairy sector. In that region, the tradition of transforming milk has been forgotten so we are going to bring there our experience and teach how to produce a cheese with a focus on quality.

Giulia Basso