Doesn’t this heat make you want to eat tons of it? We are talking about yoghurt (from yogurmak: ‘to thicken’ in Turkish), an ancient and precious food obtained – but perhaps it would be better to say accidentally discovered – from the fermentation of milk that, in the 6th century BC, Asian shepherds stored in containers made from animal stomachs.
Initially, its texture was almost solid and uneven. On the other hand, the creamy, homogeneous yoghurt as we know it is a Made in Italy invention.
A food for malnourished children
In 1947, Lumir (Leo) Vesely, born in 1908, a Czech-born scientist from the Veneto region and manager of the Milan Municipal Dairy, was asked by the municipality to carry out experiments to obtain milk enriched with specially selected enzymes to improve the diet of children in the children’s homes, who were undernourished due to rationing during the war. Vesely succeeded in developing an industrial processing method that breaks the milk curd, resulting in a sourish product that is smooth and creamy and rich in ‘noble’ milk enzymes. In the same year, he founded Sitia-YOMO SpA in Milan: Sitia from sinteia, nutrition in Greek and YOMO from the yoghurt and homogenous contracture.
Yoghurt comes to dairy shops
Sitia YOMO is the first factory to produce creamy yoghurt and distribute it in pots to dairy shops. The product immediately became a popular and highly successful food: until then, fermented milk with selected microorganisms was only sold in pharmacies. With YOMO, millions of families began to eat yoghurt daily, which has been considered a healthy food since ancient times. In the 1950s, per capita consumption rose to 4 kilos per year, while today, it has almost doubled to 7 kilos per capita. Nine out of ten Italian families eat yoghurt, a success against the general decline in the consumption of milk and dairy products in recent years.
Today, YOMO is part of the Granarolo Group from which it was acquired in 2004. The yoghurt it produces is made exclusively with Italian milk and, by 2023, will use only 100% recycled paper jars, converting the production of more than 165 million plastic jars. Its research focuses on products with high protein content, without fat, lactose and added sugar.
Congratulations to those who innovate and bring Italian yoghurt to the world!
Read the stories of other Made in Italy outstanding companies from Lombardy.