Meet Our Producers #21 ALFA FARM

ALFA FARM – Lipsi

Here you can see one of today’s Meet Our Producers star ALFA FARM products travelling in the safe hands of our captain! ALFA FARM was founded by the Italian Alessandro Baltissera, who came to Lispi as a tourist but fell deeply in love with the island. As a result, he created the cheesery back in 2016 and has been partly based on the island ever since.

The island’s rich cow farming and cheese production tradition served as a base for the cheesery and together with the equally rich Italian dairy tradition’s influence a unique series of products was created.

However, knowledge and recipes was not the only thing that followed Mr. Baltissera to Lipsi from Italy, as along with him came a herd of Mediterranean buffaloes, a breed suitable for the dry and hot climate of Lipsi, which still live on the island, a truly unique sight, and whose milk is used by the cheesery!

ALFA FARM works with a small number of cows, goats and buffaloes, all of which are almost entirely free-range.

ALFA FARM produces a range of hard, semi-hard and creamy soft cheeses from three different types of milk; cow, goat and buffalo. These are from local traditional recipes like Graviera, Ladotyri, which is preserved in oil, and Krasotyri, a cheese covered in wine lees and herbs, to Italian techniques like Caciotta a creamy cheese which is produced under the name Xenaki meaning the foreign one. In addition, the cheesery also produces cow’s, goat’s, and buffalo’s milk yoghurt.

All products from ALPHA FARM are truly pure as they are produced from 100% milk, with no added preservatives or fixers, while the procedures of cheese-making is mostly done by hand with no use of pressing machines.

As Mrs Giamaiou, the cheesemaker behind ALFA FARM products, says “when you taste a cheese, it speaks to you with its flavor and aromas, and luckily since we use 100% milk the consumer can really understand what he/she is eating through the unique taste notes of each recipe and milk type”.

It is a true joy to have such a unique cheesery in our network of producers!