Made with the Best of Daniele

“Other days include visits to suppliers for audits and visits to the places of origin of raw materials (most of them come from farms and companies that process natural products); as well as to our plants, which we periodically visit to check that there is maximum alignment with regard to processes and quality levels and that what we send centrally is received and applied in a standardised manner, as defined.

Our production sites are certified according to BRC food safety standards. As of last year, we are certified BRC Agents and Brokers, an international certification that establishes quality, safety and operational requirements for companies supplying food, packaging and other products: a further guarantee of quality excellence and food safety. Quality is monitored in several phases: each raw material is validated according to a unique comprehensive validation process that covers the safety and technical quality of the product. Each raw material is subjected to a series of tests before entering the production process to assess compliance with the set standards.

If it passes all the tests, it can be used interchangeably at all plants.

For us, quality means having full control over the quality characteristics of each stage: once something is validated, its quality profile is ensured through specific and careful controls; also in the finished product, it is ensured once again that the characteristics for which it has been validated are respected: height, flavour, colour, texture, openness of crumb, particular sensory notes (ours are very rich, I’m thinking of those given by millet or sorghum which express themselves in typical scents and unique aromas) must be guaranteed in the finished product.

Among the most important tests are those on gluten and other allergens.

The raw material is analysed before it is approved for use on the line, through a dedicated control plan. This is done on every incoming raw material, and we are talking about thousands of consignments every month. A very simple and functional test is the baking test: a new flour can be tested on products by our technical specialists in the laboratory. This test demonstrates how it behaves and whether it complies with the standards we have in place. A more technological test is one in which we highlight the physical characteristics of our raw material using sophisticated instruments that analyse a large number of data relating to water absorption, elasticity and much more.

As mentioned above, the analysis of gluten represents a crucial aspect for us to ensure food safety. 20 years ago, when I started carrying out gluten analysis, the methods had a certain level of complexity, characterised by a lot of manual work and considerable processing times.

In recent years, I have been able to observe a very significant evolution: what was once a manually conducted analysis has turned into an automated process where the analyst's role remains fundamental in the interpretation of the data and the sample preparation, which requires important skills, but all dosing processes, precision and thus the guarantee of data are entrusted to automated high-tech instruments that are themselves certified.

These technological advances allow us to perform a large amount of analysis with a high level of reliability and repetition on very large sample numbers.”