Congratulations to South Australian family-owned cheesemaker La Casa Del Formaggio who has moved into a $35 million new factory, situated in the Northern Adelaide Food Park.
The site is 10 times larger than their previous facility and Managing Director Claude Cicchiello said state-of-the-art automation would further enhance product consistency, quality and food safety.
La Casa’s old factory in Glynde started as a 400 square metre facility that expanded over the years by acquiring neighbouring businesses: 400m2 became 800m2 then 1,200m2.
“This gradual expansion wasn’t ideal for process flow. Our new facility is a clean slate. We were able to start from scratch with our layout and planning,” Claude said.
“The biggest advantage is the way we’ve been able to design the flow of the factory, with raw products coming in one end and finished products coming out the other. And the addition of automation through our SCADA system is a game-changer.”
SCADA is a supervisory control and data acquisition system that provides automation control for the entire facility and is also used for information and reporting.
“This level of automation and control is powerful from a food safety perspective,” Claude said. “It gives us more control of the product creation, and importantly, our cleaning system, including water flows, temperatures, chemical strengths and so on, and it’s all controlled by a PLC computer system.”