Our company is called "Biocaseificio Tomasoni", it was founded in 1815 and the recipe has been handed down from father to son. The name of the company goes back to our family business, as we are the 6th generation to produce Grana cheese. Together with my brothers and specialised breeders, I take care of the entire production process: from milking to the final product. Our cows and our dairy are immersed in the typical agricultural landscape of the Po Valley, precisely in Gottolengo, which is 30km from Brescia, 30km from Cremona and 45km from Mantua.
In 2014 we started to involve farmers and breeders from our municipality in this conversion project. Since 2015, 2 farms that produce milk and cereals, the baker of our municipality and a company that produces honey have joined our project. Our goal is also to succeed in converting all the farmers and breeders in our territory towards Organic Farming.
The water we use is taken from a well on the farm and is used as drinking water for the animals and washing the milking equipment. The daily consumption is about 100 litres per adult animal and 30/40 litres for young animals. On our farms the cows graze freely on meadows of medicinal herbs. We do not use antibiotic treatments on the animals, nor do we use herbicides or pesticides.
We have been producing organic Grana Padano since 2000, our cows graze freely in our fields and we do not use antibiotics, pesticides or herbicides. We want to increase the biodiversity of the grasslands to encourage honey production and create naturalistic areas to recreate habitats that give shelter to insects and native wildlife. Since 2018 we have been investing in renewable energy sources and currently have 40 KW photovoltaic panels installed on our roofs and will install another 60 next year. We have also installed a hot water storage tank. By 2030 we would like our electricity footprint to be "zero" with the aim of buying an electric tractor.
Being a family business, we all feel equal and important. There are 12 of us in the dairy (7 men and 5 women). I, Massimo Tomasoni, am in charge of the dairy, my brother Stefano is the cheesemaker, i.e. the one who processes the milk to create cheese. My brother Alberto handles the preparation of orders. All the work is still controlled by our father, who has been a cheesemaker for more than 50 years.
Our multicultural team has regular contracts with wages in line with national collective agreements. We collaborate with local farmers to control and manage our cows so that nothing is ever missing and to ensure that they are always in good condition.
All the milk produced on our farms is collected and processed into cheese: there is no over-collection. The whey, which is the waste from production, is concentrated and used to feed the calves, and we recover water from this process which is used in the dairy for washing and rinsing. All the waste produced is sorted.
All of these cows produce an average of 15 to 18 l/g of milk for the production of organic Grana cheese with vegetable rennet, but above all a farming style linked to ancient traditions.