The 180 kg daily production includes:

1. puff pastry/brioches
2. cookies
3. fresh pasta

During the installation of Infinity 60 Start blast chiller for trolley, we’ve been lucky enough to have a look at the 2000 square meters factory.

We had the pleasure to meet Mrs. Cecilia Fiandri. Someone use to call her a genius because she is a volcano of ideas. Cecilia is the co-founder of the Company and she takes care of research-development and quality control. We asked her how Graziosi Laboratory is organized and how it operates.

Cecilia, speaking about “gluten free” is getting increasingly common. Can you briefly explain what type of products does your gluten-free offer includes and how do you stand out from competitors?

Since the beginning of this project we have been focusing on research. We are committed to finding high quality raw materials. We have been always producing “top range” products avoiding the use of premixes. The cooperation with public and private Universities and Research Centers was essential to supply well-known gluten-free brands.

The careful selection of natural and high performing raw materials has always been a distinctive element for us. The “gluten free” philosophy clashes with the need to add additives or fats to compensate the “lack” of other components but we are proud to offer “clean”, natural and truly healthy products.

Puff pastry, snacks, shortbread…but also worldwide famous dishes, including lasagna and stuffed pasta, such as traditional tortellini, pumpkin or Modenese tortelli. Now celiac people and wellness food lovers can enjoy tasty and delicious alternatives to the “usual” rice dish.

Since we operate in an increasingly competitive and saturated market, our daily research aims to offer a wider and diversified range of quality products, made with strictly gluten free ingredients.

Speaking about diversification, what is your current goal and how will you achieve it?

The constant research on new types of flour is capital for us. We want to extend the offer for first courses anyway…

Pasta is the product that makes us unique. It is appreciated all over the world and we want to improve its distribution. Thanks to our new Afinox Infinity Roll In blast chiller, we plan to double our production and reach about 400 kg per day.

Environmental sustainability is a capital value for Graziosi. We wish to increase the offer thanks to optimized production processes. The use of high quality ingredients and appliances like Infinity help us reducing food waste and consumptions. We want to offer healthy products, good for the environment, not only for consumers!

Once the new processes will be optimized, the next step will be the US market. We plan to export our production philosophy, thanks to a joint venture with a local Company we are already in contact with.

You told us about fresh pasta and blast chilling: this combination can sometimes be problematic. Can you tell us about your experience on that?

In order to avoid microbiological contamination, traditional pasta production requires a chilling cycle that must be performed immediately after the pasteurization phase (approx. 70°C). In particular, lasagna needs a previous positive blast chilling cycle, functional to portioning, followed by a freezing cycle. The blast chilling and shock freezing of our products are an essential process. Before the arrival of the new cell for trolley, we performed chilling with manual loading, tray after tray, using a 10-tray plug-in blast chiller. Now, with the new tailor-made system conceived together with Afinox and our supplier partner FRIGO SERVICE R.P.F. S.r.l., we can easy load 3 trolleys with non-standard sizes. Our company is devoted to innovation and cooling techniques represented an additional opportunity. A significant example is the cooking at negative temperature of almonds, which we obtain through the drying of food.

Did you faced specific difficulties while modifying the work flow due to the new blast chilling cell?

Loading trolleys is much faster than loading trays. Nevertheless, since we use custom trolleys, we ran the risk to overturn trays and drop the product.

The importance of an homogenous cooling was also underestimated (on both middle and top/lower shelves). Uniformity is necessary to obtain a standardized product, which is distributed all over the country thanks to specialized dealers such as dispensaries, pharmacies and specialty food shops.

Some of Graziosi’s products are developed for large retailers, thus our goal is to maintain the highest quality standard over time.

Our now-how mixed with Afinox suggestions led us to optimize the new process almost immediately.

The cooperation with Afinox was also interesting to develop new ideas, e.g. those related to bakery leavened products.

Can you tell us more about that?

Sure. Leavening is a relevant theme for us.  Many of Graziosi’s products, such as puff pastry, cookies and tarts undergo to leavening cycles. We currently operate with a kind of “pendulum” leavening system.

Trays with leavened products are placed inside a room with controlled temperature, humidity and ventilation. Thanks to a mechanical system trays oscillate rhythmically to allow an homogeneous leavening to all levels.

Speaking with Afinox we also discovered Mekano Pro proving cell for trolleys, an interesting product. We are interested to learn more about that indeed!