La Casa Del Formaggio Wins Innovation Award!

La Casa Del Formaggio has won the prestigious SARDI Innovation Award in the 2015 South Australian Food Industry Awards Program. The award was announced at the annual Gala Dinner organised by Food SA, the state’s peak industry body for the food industry.

The award recognised an innovative change to milk supply relationships; how La Casa Del Formaggio sourced milk to make high quality fresh cheese. Rather than buying milk from a bulk milk supplier, La Casa Del Formaggio formed partnerships with seven family farms located in the beautiful, lush Mt. Compass and Myponga region of the Fleurieu Peninsula, South Australia. These farms supply fresh milk seven days a week. The partner farms were selected because of their quality, the terroir of the Fleurieu region (which is reflected in their milk) and specific herd mix of Friesian and Jersey cows, which delivers the perfect balance of butter fat and protein in the milk to make it perfect for cheesemaking.
“This innovative approach delivered advantages at multiple levels” says Claude Cicchiello, Managing Director of La Casa Del Formaggio. “It delivered a price stability advantage for La Casa Del Formaggio, a price/volume stability advantage for the farmers, a level of authenticity, terroir and provenance for the La Casa Del Formaggio brand, confidence of quality for the consumer and an embodiment of the South Australian industry food strategy all in one initiative.”

La Casa Del Formaggio’s Managing Director Claude Cicchiello. Photo: James Knowler + Crew

“We’ve noticed an improvement in the quality, taste and texture of our cheeses since moving to direct milk supply, and we’ve received quite a bit of customer feedback that confirms our observations.”
The close working relationship with a small number of premium dairy farmers has allowed La Casa Del Formaggio to be confident in consistently high quality milk which in turn is now reflected in their cheese products. It has also allowed the dairies to work with La Casa Del Formaggio to carefully and consciously build quality through continuous improvement.

“At La Casa Del Formaggio, we are passionate about sharing our authentic family cheese tradition from Italy with Australia,” says Claude Cicchiello. That passion and commitment to authenticity and quality is self-evident in the La Casa Del Formaggio range of products; a commitment to authenticity, for example, that means that La Casa Del Formaggio continues to resist the market pressure to put shelf-life extending chemicals into their fresh ricotta.

For more on the SA Food Industry Awards, visit their website:http://safoodawards.com.au/.