THE COOPERATIVA PRODUTTORI LATTE E FONTINA'S WAREHOUSES
In addition to the Saint-Christophe headquarters, Cooperativa now has six maturing rooms carved in the land, with a total capacity of about 150,000 cheese wheels. Most of the warehouses used to be military sites used during World War II, except for the warehouse in Valpelline, located in a tunnel that leads to an ancient copper mine, used for extraction until 1946. Nowadays, the old rails used for the transport of minerals are used for the handling of the cheese wheels.
The environmental conditions of the warehouses are characterised by very high relative humidity (> 90%) and by a temperature of around 10°C constantly throughout the year.
Approximately 60 people work in the six maturing warehouses. They take daily care of the different steps involved in the maturing process and guarantee the quality of the maturation of the cheese, alternating salting, turning and manual brushing.
As tradition dictates, we only use scales for our cheeses made of spruce wood (Picea Excelsa).
OUR LOCATION
HISTORICAL PHOTOS
THE VALPELLINE WAREHOUSE
The search for storage facilities was directed from the outset towards pre-existing underground structures that could guarantee the desired environmental and proximity characteristics. The Santa Barbara gallery of the abandoned Preslong mine in the commune of Valpelline soon proved to be a winning solution. In 1964, part of the gallery was granted for the ripening and storage of cheese.
THE PRÉ-SAINT-DIDIER WAREHOUSE
This was Cooperative's first warehouse. This former military bunker was dug into the soil at the beginning of World War II. It has recently undergone some external upgrades and refurbishment, but with some limitations ordered by the Regional Superintendence for artistic and cultural heritage reasons to maintain the overall external aspect of "war remnant", as a symbol for future generations.
Contact the cooperative to visit the unique seasoning warehouses