Article by Matteo Donelli
Strong family, able to lead the company to the new generations. With a single fixed point that has always been: believing in an artisanal Sicilian product.
Many difficult moments faced with a cohesion beyond any standard of business organization. The nucleus: a large family, from other times, with children and grandchildren (but no wives) in common, carrying on the dream of a Sicilian artisan product for half a century.
A strong common pride has amalgamated the different characters of the members of the family. Different angles and points of view have gone into the background leading to the affirmation of an incredibly competitive work organization capable of growing in terms of staff and turnover up to international levels of structure.
“Presenting the objectives achieved, the successes and the defeats, always united, always with a single voice in unison, has brought us together as a management team” says Rossano Zappalà, one of the three Zappalà brothers.
We are also dinosaurs in communication where we like to always appear united ”.
Family business, where familiar is a revised and modernized characteristic of the term which also provides for the coexistence of managerial figures who have been part of the company columns for over a decade.
Heart and registered office in Zafferana, in the land of Etna, to reach as many as 30 countries around the world.
For example, in America, the shelves of a famous distribution chain are full of lemon ricotta pies, while in Poland we sell around 100 tons of caciotte every year.
About thirty million liters of milk processed every year to make products such as mozzarella, ricotta, spun pasta, cheeses and pecorino.
Numbers that start from afar. Since 1973 when the brilliant intuition of father Alfio led to the creation of an artisan workshop and then transformed in 1986 into a real food industry.
An industry that continues to grow in the world but that has made the search for the restoration of ancient flavors one of the pillars of the company.
New production lines have recently “recovered” the Sicilian pecorino DOP ”One of the oldest cheeses in Europe, also mentioned in Homer's Odyssey.
Want to listen to the ideas of their collaborators at all levels. A company with very genuine and not very glossy internal dynamics and communications.
So in the TV commercials of the company to attend there were no models or actors but the Zappalà family directly. By putting your face to it and without playing script parts.
Stay in close contact with the market with the housewife but also with the chef.
Mariangela Zappalà, Salvatore's daughter, proudly underlines the collaborations in the Ho.Re.Ca channel of Sicilian and national associations of chefs and pastry chefs.
The contact with the chefs to always have a concrete sense of where to direct the company research on products.
On the slopes of the highest active volcano in Europe is the Zafferana Etnea plant. While industrializing, the pleasant impact of the strong Sicilian smells of homemade raw materials arrives strong.
In Ragusa where mozzarella, ricotta and typical cheeses are produced, in Caltanisetta where the packaging of fresh and long-lasting milk as well as cream takes place.
Places where you can breathe an air of home, an air of family.
As archaic as it is progressive. A family that has focused on the antiquity of the values of union and on the most advanced technologies and tools.
Luigi Zappalà General Manager gets excited when they talk to him about corporate nepotism. “There are no preferential lanes here. Siblings, children, grandchildren and employees are all the same. The international market does not allow us to work with these retrograde methodologies. If we are among the main companies in the Italian dairy sector, the secret is to be found in the balance and harmony of skills that we have achieved internally. "
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