Article from go-sardinia.it.
Go Sardinia is an annual magazine distributed in the Swiss Canton of Ticino and in Northern Italy.
In the summer 2022 edition he talked about the farm by dedicating a space to the interview of the three protagonists of the Otto Passi project.
Below is an excerpt with the article and the English translation.
Otto Passi: natural cheeses and constant innovation for the Sardinian agricultural startup
Two hundred hectares of cultivated land border on one side with the Tirso river, on the other with the valleys of the Margine in central Sardinia, hosting a thousand sheep that seem to live in a resort as far as they are cared for and cared for.
Luca, Rita and Paolo are between 29 and 39 years old, and above all that gentle light in the eyes of those who want to give value and vision to a healthy, authentic Island. Otto Passi is the agricultural company they created in 2019, just in the period in which the shepherds’ revolt against the decrease in the price of milk was unleashed. “My father and my mother transformed it rather than throw it away – remembers Rita Tolu-.
In those days we got passionate and studied, to then ask ourselves: why don’t we make cheese? ”. It is Luca Tolu who begins work in the countryside with the idea of founding a modern and collaborative company with research centers and regional bodies, while Paolo Musu, a chemical engineer with extensive experience also in multinationals, designs the path that milk takes from milking at the processing laboratory.
And it’s just eight steps, with the milk still lukewarm, then filtered and processed raw. The only ingredients are milk, rennet, salt and in some lactic ferments. The natural starters cultures are the distinctive element that maintains the nutritional and aromatic characteristics of the milk. “We do not pasteurize, we do not use commercial starter strains – explains Rita – for this reason we have decided not to be part of any consortium, precisely because we want to protect the flavor of the cheese”.
“Our storytelling focuses on this world in a real, authentic way, restoring dignity to people who have an ancient profession.”
Pecorino, stracchino and sheep’s milk casizolu are some of the leading products of the agricultural startup that began marketing its products in September 2021 and which already sells very well outside Sardinia, in homes, restaurants and shops that love natural cheese. .
“We sell because we also like our narration – says Rita -. We are averse to the folkloristic and touristic one of the agro-pastoral world, which it does not represent to us, children of generations of shepherds. Our storytelling focuses on this world in a real, authentic way, restoring dignity to people who do an ancient profession in a global context ”. Because “today whoever is a shepherd must have many skills – adds Paolo -, to know technology, to know how to deal with the world, to network. He is a full-fledged entrepreneur ”.
Attention is also paid to the challenging aspect of sustainability. From packaging with the use of paper to wrap and store cheeses to the reuse of sheep’s wool, and finally the idea of using sheep manure to produce energy and close the supply chain. The sheep are the princesses of the new company Otto Passi. Followed by both a nutritionist and a veterinarian, they rest in a large warehouse with large sliding doors within which a central beam of light is created that simulates the light of the moon, so that they are never completely in the dark. Along a feeding lane, on the other hand, meals are given, with water available and a diet that varies according to the life cycle of the sheep. And as the sun begins to set over the vast valleys of the Marghine, Rita concludes: “My great-grandparents practiced transhumance from Fonni to here, they moved on foot. Then came the horses and finally the trucks, while my father started farming the land. We use the traditional recipe and innovate, with care and rigor. I think then that the giants are the traditions that we carry with us but we must be over those shoulders to see beyond ”.