The 16thApril, 2014 was a slightly rainy morning when students and staff of the Food Technology unit left the ECIAF's Agro Entrepreneurial Campus, our destination: Mr. Piero Guerrini's cheese factory in Grand Rivière. The drive was about three hours long, with narrow, winding roads and breath-taking views. We saw lush green forest on the side of the roads and passed a few rural villages.

We arrived at our destination a little after 12 noon and Mr. Guerrini welcomed us to Dolce Valle Dairy; a little white building standing out from the green tropical background. We entered into a small office and reception area adjacent to male and female washrooms; everything was painted and tiled white. Before entering the processing room, we attired ourselves with hair nets and shoe covers.

Mr. Piero Guerrini, entrepreneur and manufacturer of ten types of local cheeses (handmade mozzarella, provola bianca, provola ribiena, ricotta, casatella among others) as well as yogurt began his story:

On April 1, 2012, Dolce Valle was officially born, but from as early as September 2011 he was making home made mozzarella from his kitchen at Mt Plaisir. He said, "The idea came from seeing all the buffalo in T&T and wondering why no one was doing something with the milk." Although he currently uses cow's milk to produce the range of cheeses and yogurts, he hopes someday to fully utilize the buffalos' milk to create cheese and other dairy products.

The entire start-up capital for the business cost him $1.5 million (TT) with equipment from Italy. He explains, he begins the cheese-making process by doing a simple acidity test to ascertain the age of the milk, then pumping the 150 liters of milk from the milk bulk cooler (which maintains the milk's temperature at 3-5oC). The milk cooler also keeps the milk agitated so it does not settle. The milk is then strained and pasteurized.

When it cools a bacterial culture is added and formation of curds begins. Rennet is added to act as a coagulant after 20-30 minutes of adding the culture. After a while, curds will coagulate at the top and whey will settle to the bottom; ricotta is produced using the whey, Guerrini informed.  

Mr. Guerrini hopes to add local flavour to the line of cheeses and yogurt, like shadon beni to the cheese and pommerac to his yogurt and expressed hope that his cheese-making business would assist in reversing the dependency many Caribbean societies have on foreign imports.

Mr. Guerrini said he has no wish to become a huge industrial cheese producer. He simply wants his label to be one line which reads: "Milk, salt, love and care".

After sampling the variety of cheeses and yoghurt, we left the Dolce Valle Dairy and went to the Mt. Plaisir Hotel to have a sumptuous lunch prepared by our classmate, Albertina DeGale. The ambience at the Mt. Plaisir Hotel was heavenly, as it sits on the sea shore. Finally, to top the day off, we saw a leatherback turtle coming onto shore to lay her eggs! We are sharing some photos of this wonderful day with you.

From the Food Technology Unit