Tenuta Vannulo dairy

The best buffalo mozzarella cheese starts with the best care for animals

A queue forms for rub-downs as jazz piano tinkles out of the speakers: some of the best buffalo mozzarella in the world starts with in-stable VIP treatment.

Ducky, Sweety and Lady lumber towards the sound system, attracted to the smooth Keith Jarrett licks at the exclusive Tenuta Vannulo dairy in southern Italy.

 

"The music helps them produce more milk because the animal feels more relaxed," said Valentina Michelucci, astable hand.

The half-tonne black water buffaloes spend their days lounging on rubber mattresses, munching on organic hay or looking forward to vaporised showers that form a fine cooling mist from overhead pipes.

When they feel the urge, they saunter into a special pen for automatic milking by a unique machine that knows the exact shape of each udder thanks to a code emitted by the electronic collars the buffaloes wear.

Or they can head to large round brushes that twist into action when the animals come into contact with them, providing a soothing back and shoulders massage.

"Animals have to be treated well to produce stress-free milk," Antonio Palmieri, owner of the 200-hectare (500-acre) farm said.

"They can't speak for themselves so it's up to us to understand how they want to be cared for," he said, sitting in a manicured garden next to his three stables, which house 500 buffaloes.

The farm sells around 300 kilogrammes (800 pounds) of mozzarella per day for 13 euros a kilo -- nearly $8 a pound.

 

There's just one catch: If you want it, you have to drive to the farm, 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of Salerno, to buy it, as Palmieri does not bother with distribution -- or marketing, for that matter.

Brisk business

Business is brisk anyway, thanks to the dairy's word-of-mouth fame and international reputation among jet-setting buffalo milk aficionados.

Around 45,000 customers visited the on-site farm shop in August alone.

 

The staple remains mozzarella but Vannulo also make a range of buffalo milk-based products including yoghurt, ice cream and, starting next year, chocolate.

Vannulo's "is widely regarded as the best mozzarella," said Piero Sardo, president of the Foundation for Biodiversity at Slow Food, an Italy-based international gourmet and eco-friendly farming group.

"The well-being of animals is an important issue," said Sardo, a cheese expert, although he admitted that the link between better treatment and tastier milk was scientifically "difficult to prove".

The history of buffalo dairying in Italy has been traced to the 12th century, but it remained a mainly local affair until relatively recently because of the difficulties in refrigerating the milk.

Before the 1980s, most dairies in the region were small producers like Vannulo.

But in recent years, buffalo mozzarella has gone international and is now prized in the best restaurants from Dubai to Moscow to Sydney. The coveted cheese sells for 30 euros a kilo in Russia.