Welcome!

With the purchase of one of La Dispensa's 2019 cheese products, you get full access to a detailed look behind the scenes of the production process.

Enjoy the impressions and bon appetit!

Yours, the team of Unfold

About Unfold x La Dispensa

In early 2019, the Unfold team has accompanied the dairy production of La Dispensa for 7 days: from the 2nd of March until the 9th of March. Every step in their value added chain has been recorded to provide customers with exclusive insights to the dairy production. La Dispensa is committed to our transparency project and shares every single detail of their production with the Unfold team. The product pages of La Dispensa are continuously updated with essential documents for assessing the quality of La Dispensa’s dairy products such as regular analysis of their sheep milk and monthly veterinarian reports about the health conditions of the sheep. Current and past shipments as well as transport conditions are monitored and shared with La Dispensa’s customers.

The Unfold team is constantly improving the credibility and validity of their transparency concept to ultimately reach 100% transparency. Have a look at our news feed to read about upcoming projects and improvements to our transparency concept.

↝ More about La Dispensa  ↝ About Unfold

General information

The sheep of La Dispensa are milked twice a day. Every morning and afternoon the sheep are gathered for the milking process at 200 days a year. Not all female sheep are ready to give milk. First, they need to give birth. Only then it is possible to milk the sheep for 6-7 months. Each sheep produces up to 4 litres of fresh milk every day depending on its condition (age, health, etc.) and the thirst of its children throughout the day. At the moment 69 sheep of La Dispensa are able to give milk. After being gathered in different groups depending on the passed time since pregnancy the sheep can enter the milk processing area through a remote-controlled sliding door. A maximum of 12 sheep can be milked with the milking machine of La Dispensa at the same time. On average, a group of 12 sheep is milked within 6-10 minutes.

Milking process and feeding

During the milking process, the sheep are fed with type of food. Every time a new group of sheep enters the milk processing area the food is automatically renewed by the milking machine. When the milking process is finished the milk processing area is cleaned manually and the responsible worker starts the automatic cleaning process for the milking machine. Then the sheep are fed with a special mixture of hay, palette and cereals. The special mixture is freshly prepared in the mixing machine right next to the stable and can automatically be transported in the stable through an electronic conveyor belt. Each day all milk giving sheep are provided with 70-80 kg (ø per sheep and day: 1.086 kg) of the mixture next to the food in the milk processing area and on the wooden barrows in the stable.

Analysis routines, transport and storage

Next to the 69 milk giving sheep La Dispensa owns two male sheep and multiple lambs. All sheep are controlled once per month by a veterinarian and the milk is being analysed every 15 days to maintain high quality and take preventive actions when the analysed parameters are not satisfying. After feeding the sheep and cleaning the milking facilities, Giuseppe transports the freshly produced milk with an old APE transport vehicle to the cheese production facilities. Arriving at the cheese production area Giuseppe changes his clothes and fills the freshly produced milk into the refrigerator tank. The temperature is always kept below 4°C in the refrigerator tank and the milk is constantly being stirred to further reduce the risk of corruption. Within a maximum of three days the milk is processed to cheese.

Milking #1

March 3rd 2019
7:44–9:55

Day 1, Morning

Milking

7:44–8:33

Cleaning

8:33–9:04

Feeding

8:53–9:33

Transport

9:52–9:55

Milking #2

March 3rd 2019
18:27–20:11

Day 1, Evening

Milking

18:48–19:33

Cleaning

19:33–20:03

Feeding

19:55–20:01

Transport

20:06–20:11

Milking

7:20–8:07

Cleaning

7:44–8:33

Feeding

8:22–8:26

Maintenance

8:27–8:46

Transport

8:49–8:55

Milking #4

March 4th 2019
18:34–20:02

Day 2, Evening

Milking

18:34–19:39

Feeding

19:43–19:56

Cleaning

19:56–20:26

Transport

19:57–20:02

Milking #5

March 3rd 2019
7:44–9:55 & 8:36–09:08

Day 3, Morning

Cleaning

7:25–7:51

Milking

7:51–8:36

Feeding

8:40–8:45

Transport

8:55–9:02

Milking #6

March 5th 2019
18:05–19:24

Day 3, Evening

Milking

18:05–19:00

Feeding

19:02–19:06

Cleaning

19:08–19:17

Transport

19:18–19:24

March 3rd 2019
8:19–9:29

Day 4, Morning

Milking

8:19–8:52

Cleaning

8:52–9:07

Feeding

9:00–9:06

Transport

9:09–9:17

Production

March 5th 2019
09:39–17:34

Day 4, Morning

Set-up 

09:39

Salting

09:41

Pasteurisation

09:45

Fermentation

10:53

Curd & Whey Decantation

13:38

Cutting

13:25

Shaping

13:47

Temporary Storage

14:31–17:34

Storage & Maturity

March 5th+6th 2019
17:34–18:16 + 9:47

Days 5–21+

pH check

17:34

Packaging & labelling (San Pietrino)

17:35–18:16

Storage (San Pietrino Muffato)

9:47 (next day)

Thank you for looking

We do hope that our work helps you consume more responsibly. In case you still have any questions regarding the producer or the production process, let us know.

Also, we're more than happy about general feedback on how we are doing.

Until then, the team of Unfold