Another dairy day in Italy

Continuing the saga of my Italy trip, one day, our dairy group was transported to a Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese plant, a few miles from Milan in the Po River Valley. This cheese has been made for over 1,000 years and was originally created by the Benedictine monks in the Middle Ages as a way to preserve milk without any additives. Surprisingly, the cheese maker allowed our group to take as many pictures as we wanted to as we watched the cheesemaking.

The process of making Parmigiano-Reggiano requires a lot of hand labor. The milk is put in copper cauldrons the night before from the evening milking. In the morning, the cream, which has risen to the top, is siphoned off and used for other things, such as ice cream or butter. When the morning milk is delivered from the farms, it is added to the evening milk, and the process of making Parmigiano-Reggiano is started. Natural calf rennet and whey culture, derived from the previous day’s cheese production, are added to the combination of night and morning milk. Once the curds begin to form, there’s a careful, controlled heating process. The curd granules eventually form a large mass in the bottom of the cauldron. The cauldrons are shaped like large funnels with the narrow end below the floor level. The master cheese maker will use his fingers to determine when the curd can be removed. Two big paddles are placed into the cauldron and the curd is floated to the surface. Next, the curd is divided into two pieces. Two men then take cheese cloths and put them under each piece of curd. The cheese is then wrapped and suspended and whey is allowed to drain out of it for a few minutes.

The curd is then put into circular plastic molds and transported to another room. There, the future wheels of cheese are turned every hour during the first day to allow some of the moisture to leave the cheese. The plastic collar around each wheel of cheese is imprinted with the date, time and location of the production of that particular wheel of cheese. Each wheel weighs 100 pounds.

In the next stage, each wheel is immersed in a solution of natural salt water. The wheels stay in the salt solution, which causes the outside of the wheel of cheese to dry out and harden. After the wheels are removed from the brine, they are transported to an aging room in which they are stored for many months. The minimum aging time for Parmigiano-Reggiano is 12 months before it is allowed to be sold. All cheeses are inspected by a consortium that regulates the sale of Parmigiano-Reggiano. Inspectors will tap on the wheels to detect air pockets in the cheese. If air pockets are found, those wheels are discarded.

The curing room we observed had approximately 30,000 wheels in storage. The wheels are turned over each month – sometimes more often when the cheese is younger. The wheels of cheese in that particular storage room are valued at approximately $600 per wheel. This room was full because aging cheese gives it a more distinctive flavor and, therefore, a higher value.

Our next stop in a nearby small town was a Parma ham production facility. Parma hams come from pigs that are approximately 9 months old and weigh about 300 pounds. In this particular facility, they would slaughter about 300 pigs per hour. Legs from approved pigs are selected for making Parma hams, which eventually become what most Americans call prosciutto. The legs are cleaned and salted with the hide on them. They are then kept in a room with 80% humidity so that the salt is absorbed into the meat. After five days, the hams are massaged and salted again. The next step involves spending about four months at 2 degrees Celsius, which is just above freezing, and adding more salt. The hams then hang for 14 months. They are ready when they smell done, with the main butcher’s nose being the detection device. This part of Italy processes about 21 million pounds per year. The only preservative put on a Parma ham is sea salt. One leg is valued at approximately $280. Sixty percent of the hams are sold in Italy; the rest go to foreign countries.

Our next stop was Bandioli Dairy near Piubega. This dairy was milking approximately 760 cows with 14 Lely robots. This is quite a state-of-the-art dairy. Besides the robotic milkers they also have two digesters and a computer-controlled automatic feeding system. This farm did not have any quota on its milk production. They are currently averaging about 110 pounds per cow per day in the new facilities, but less than that in their old facilities. It is common practice in Italy to build a new barn directly adjacent to an old facility. This farm found that leaving a space between the buildings caused their production to increase.

They use an automated Lely feeding system with three kitchens. Each kitchen has a crane which picks up feedstuffs and puts them in the total mixed ration. The TMR then follows a metal pathway to the barns where the feed is given to the cows. They like that there is no waste, no labor and that feed is always in front of the cows. The robotic car travels six times a day. There was some chatter about how well it would work in an environment with freezing temperatures and snow.

The dairy had nine employees, with very little human interaction in the milking pens. The milking robots were positioned in the center of the barn with automatic manure alley scrapers. There were no foot baths; instead, they spray the feet once a week to prevent warts. Cows were visiting the robots 3.2-3.4 times per day. One big expense they have is the use of pelleted straw, which costs them over $2.30 per day per cow. They are using reproductive protocols similar to those in the U.S., but are concerned about the EU restricting hormone use in the future.

Bandioli Dairy sells manure solids from their digesters to keep their phosphorus levels lower. They use the liquid manure to fertilize their grass and alfalfa. Their land prices have doubled in the last four years to about $31,820 per acre. The cost to build their last freestall barn was over 10,000 euros per stall.

We were treated to different ages of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese at this dairy. When a person can eat as much cheese as he wants, he finds that four-year-old Parmigiano-Reggiano does not require a lot to be satisfied.

Thanks for reading during this hectic, busy and challenging time of year. I’m glad to be home and in the thick of all the decisions being made every few minutes of every day. Like most, I love the satisfaction of putting natural fertilizer, seed and sweat into the ground with the hope it brings us rewards.