Welcome to Caseificio Presanella. I’ll be your guide on this tour, but please feel free to look around, take in the aromas and, if you like, stop wherever you wish: just press pause.

Let’s start here, at the very beginning. Everything you see today began in 1976. Imagine this area back then: a group of farmers from these mountains decided to take a chance. Instead of going it alone, they chose to join forces. They set up a social cooperative.

But what, really, is a cooperative? It is not just a business. It is a pact. It is the idea that an individual’s work is worth more when shared with others. Here, the cooperative has become the guardian of landscape and tradition.

But what was it like before 1976? Well, back then there were the ‘rotational dairies’. It was a fascinating but labour-intensive system: each member would bring their own milk and, in turn, it was their turn to take home the cheese and all the dairy products made that day: the so-called ‘caserada’. It was done ‘in turn’, as the name suggests: depending on how much milk was delivered, the farmer was allocated a certain number of caserade
throughout the year.

Back then, there was a small dairy in every village, forming a widespread network that served local families. But in the 1970s, the world changed rapidly. Many small family-run businesses, which had previously served purely to provide for the household, began to close down. Many chose to switch to other jobs, abandoning farm life altogether.

Suddenly, it was no longer viable to have a dairy in every single village if there was no one left to deliver the milk. That is why the remaining farmers realised they needed a shared ‘home’, a single centre capable of carrying on the legacy of all those small villages.

And the story didn’t end there. The reason we’re here today is that our family has grown even further. In 2025, we merged with the Rumo dairy, and today we’re a large team of around 70 members. Seventy families who work every day to bring the flavour of our tradition to your tables. Our members are spread throughout the upper Val di Sole: from Passo del Tonale to Dimaro, with a significant presence in Val di Pejo, one member in Val di Rabbi and one in the municipality of Caldes, as well as in Rumo, Livo, Bresimo, Proves, Lauregno and Tregiovo.

Go up the stairs and turn left; have a look at the video on the big screen if it’s playing, otherwise you’ll find it in step 2 of the guide.