Buon appetito
How Parma's food cluster digested the Parmalat crisis
IT IS not so much a job as a way of life. At around five o'clock every morning Bruno Monica starts filling the vats in the dairy at Consorzio Produttori Latte in Baganzolino, in the flat farmland of the Po Valley a few miles from Parma. For almost 40 years Mr Monica has been a casaro, or master cheesemaker, overseeing the making of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. The five-man dairy makes nearly 10,000 parmesan wheels a year, accounting for around 360 tonnes of the 120,000 tonnes produced by 500 dairies in a tightly defined area south of the Po, mainly in the provinces of Parma and Reggio Emilia.
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Buon appetito”
From the January 20th 2007 edition
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