Punjab Parmesan
The milk lorry arrives at six in the morning. At eight in the evening the parmesan wheels are turned over one last time. An exhausting, hard tradition which many Italians no longer want to follow. The work is too hard and the wages too low, and the big cities are luring people away from the countryside. The tradition has passed into the hands of others: Indian immigrants.


There are about 140,000 Indians living in Italy, most of whom have settled in the North - the land of Parmigiano Reggiano, the original parmesan cheese.


CILA is one of 3,000 farms producing milk for Parmigiano Reggiano. It employs sixty people, thirteen of whom work with the cows. Of these, nine are Indians.




The farmer is talking about one of his colleagues, a Hindu, who blesses the animals before milking them. "…unfortunately, the bull got him one day" But thankfully nothing serious happened.



Industry experts estimate that about sixty percent of workers in parmesan production come from India.


Lufthansa exclusive, № 07 / 2017
Photo Editor: Zita Rothmund-Zinn
Author: Gesa Steeger