If you’re wondering what I’m referring to, the answer comes from a company based in a small village in northern Italy, just a few miles away from the Italian Alps.
With the ever increasing global industry demand and half of the world’s scarce access to the raw material, MILK POWDER, which is in effect nothing short of a commodity, ticks all the right boxes to be a business worth investing in.
I’m referring to an Italian dairy company which, according to management sources, has recently invested into building Europe’s most technologically advanced plant for the transformation of milk into its powdery derivate. Just the other day I visited In.Al.Pi, based near Cuneo, in Italy’s Piedmont region. Typical Italian family run company, its history in the dairy business goes back several decades. The recent partnership with the Ferrero Group which sees In.Al.Pi supplying 15.000 tons of milk powder to the world-renowned confectionery giant, has boosted investments for a state of the art production plant.
In a sector worth 20 billion Euros a year in Italy alone, the number of milk farms has been decreasing since 1983 from 180.000 to only 43.000 today. Thanks to its investments, In.Al.Pi has managed to revive the previously depress local supply market, which plays a vital role for the region’s economy and has gained endorsement and support from regional authorities.
Aside from the production of milk powder and private label production, In.al.pi has its own range of cheeses, butters, spreads which are positioned at the premium end of the market as they claim to be 100% from quality local origin milk. The highlight of my tasting session were the cheese slices (fettine o sottilette) which are made from real milk unlike those of the multinationals competitions and the flavoured butters (truffle, ginger, orange, etc…)!
I’d like to see them bet on the export market with this range of fine dairy products, and I’m sure they’ll have no problem in widening their industry partners worldwide for the milk powder business. Lastly, in my opinion the logical next step for a company that has invested so much in milk powder technology would be to expand into the infant formula business.
for more info http://www.inalpi.it
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