Page 28 - Food&Drink Jan-Feb 2022 magazine

DAIRY BUSINESS
A passionate cheesy love
Starting with just one cheese, Giorgio Linguanti has built That’s Amore Cheese into an award winning business. Bane Williams talks to the cheesemaker about his passion.
Founder Giorgio Linguanti and cheesemaker Helen Ritchie with That’s Amore’s specialty range.
STARTING in 2008 with a single product, That’s Amore Cheese has grown from a small rented space to a 3000 square metre factory and cafe, employing more than 100 people and exporting worldwide.
The core principle of the business, creating high quality gourmet Italian cheese, has remained the same from the very beginning.
Founder and managing director Giorgio Linguanti says the business started out producing fresh cheeses like burrata, buffalo mozzarella, and ricotta.
“Now we are processing nearly 200,000 litres of milk a week, producing almost 65 different varieties of cheeses.
“We still specialise in fresh cheeses, but we are branching out into specialising in blue cheese, washed rind, white mould, semi mature and mature cheese to meet the market requests for our cheese,” Linguanti says.
Giorgio was always intent on pioneering new products. His first, bocconcini leaf, was a hit with the local restaurant scene, causing him to research and produce new products for the restaurant market.
“It’s been difficult to bring new cheese from the Italian tradition to the Australian market. People do not even know the name of the cheese, or how to pronounce it.
“Going from no interest to creating demand and then making sales and getting orders has been challenging,” he says.
An unexpected challenge for the business came once it started growing. Growth means the need for more space, equipment, and staff.
That’s Amore has been in its current location since 2015 and in some areas, they are already bulging at the seams.
“We underestimated some areas and overestimated others.
We dedicated a lot of specialised space to production because that was a major problem in our previous locations.
“But now, packaging and having a big enough loading bay have been the issues. We go through so much packaging that we need a bigger space just for that,” Linguanti recalls.
The company has eight distribution vehicles covering most of the greater Melbourne area. It also supplies interstate and international distributors, and has a direct relationship with Coles with the brand Giorgio’s Artisan Cheese.
THE CHEESE TEACHER
One of Linguanti’s initiatives when he first started the business was to educate consumers.
He was determined to teach customers the names and flavours of various products, how to use them, and the provenance of the ingredients.
“We started holding cheese classes and mozzarella making demonstrations. It allowed consumers to taste the cheese straight away and develop a much greater understanding of the differences,” he says.
For Linguanti, this first hand experience is very important when you are introducing a completely foreign product into the market.
“Bocconcini has long been identified as a very boring cheese, but in reality, the taste is very delicate. Not everyone appreciates it if they don’t have the knowledge,” Linguanti explains.
In addition to tasting cheese when they are at their freshest and most optimal times, That’s Amore’s educational program extends to recipes and ways to get to know the product better.
Linguanti says sharing knowledge is ongoing as the cheeses change flavour from season to season due to using premium milk that isn’t standardised.
Fresh cheeses like ricotta are still signature products for That’s Amore Cheese.
28 | Food&Drink business | January-February 2022 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au