Massimo’s brings fresh mozzarella to NZ tables

In 2010, the couple rented a small, licensed cheesemaking facility in Auckland to churn out fresh, authentic Massimo’s Italian cheeses.

Sensing a market for fresh Italian cheeses, Lubisco set up a cheese factory at Dairy Flat, north of Auckland, and decided to focus on mozzarella.

“Because I didn’t have many customers and orders for big volumes back then, I had more time to play with the milk and do different things,” he told Dairy News.

“I was doing other cheeses, like Provolone or Blue: then I stopped, because my business was growing.

“I decided to concentrate only on the mozzarella because you can’t mix cultures: if you do blue cheese, you can’t do mozzarella. Also, there’s a risk of contamination. Mozzarella is quite a delicate cheese, so it can’t be done together with other cheeses.”

Massimo’s is the country’s only supplier of fresh cow milk mozzarella. Today, the business employs 12 full-time staff and its product range includes the 1kg mozzarella log, burrata, ricotta and bocconcini. About 50% of the products are sold through retailers while the rest is sold directly to the food service sector.

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The company has picked up NZ Champion Cheesemaking Awards medals every year since 2012, when it won a gold for its ricotta and a bronze for its mozzarella. This year it won gold medals for burrata, burratina, mozzarella, bocconcini, cheery bocconcini, stracciatella and ricotta. Mossimo’s quality has also garnered recognition on the international stage. Last year it won gold for mozzarella log at the International Cheese and Dairy Awards in Staffordshire, UK. This year, Massimo’s picked up two gold medals – for the log and burrata – and a bronze for tub mozzarella. Over 9000 cheeses entered the competition.

Lubisco says he was pleasantly surprised by the medals won in the UK this year. Mozzarella is best served fresh and with entries taking 10 days to reach the UK, he wasn’t sure about the flavours being retained.

“We submitted three entries. I was confident of the mozzarella in brine, but the log doesn’t sit in water, so I was worried that it might lose its flavour.

“However, even after taking 10 days to reach the UK, winning the gold medals was a good surprise for the team.”

Lubisco says the medals is a testament to pure NZ milk and the hard work of Massimo’s team.

“We have no preservatives in our product, no additives, no fat, only pure milk.

“So, it’s recognition of local milk and our hard work, and our good recipes. It also shows us that we are on the right track and delivering excellent products to New Zealanders.”

From the early days of selling small batches of cheese at farmers’ markets to becoming NZ’s fresh cheese specialists is a great achievement, something Lubisco says wasn’t easy and something he had never dreamt off. He adds that educating NZ consumers about fresh cheeses has been part of the journey.

“It’s a good achievement; I always knew that if you do a good job, you get results.

“However, at the beginning, everybody was saying, ‘you know, this is New Zealand, it’s not like in Italy’. When we started selling at the farmers’ markets, fresh mozzarella was new to the country,” he says.

“People were not accustomed to this delicate, milky flavour. New Zealanders are used to stronger flavours like cheddar and blue cheeses. After tasting mozzarella, people were saying, ‘oh, there’s no flavour in it’.

“It was a long process to educate people, pointing out to them the similarities between fresh milk and fresh product we make.”

Frozen Imports

Massimo's source milk from Fonterra under the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act (DIRA), where the coop is required to sell raw milk to smaller processors.

Fonterra tankers deliver the milk to Massimo’s plant in Dairy Flat, north of Auckland.

The milk is pasteurised and turned into mozzarella cheeses and delivered to retailers within 48 hours.

Massimo Lubisco says fresh, not frozen, is the biggest point of difference between Massimo’s products and competing imported products.

Lubisco says with high production and labour costs, NZ fresh cheeses are unable to compete with frozen overseas products.

He says there’s a need to highlight the difference between fresh local cheeses and frozen overseas ones.

“But you don’t see anything on the shelf - it’s not written that it’s frozen, you buy without knowing.”