Mission

Our history is rooted in the fabulous Sixties, when, thanks to the new emerging technologies, new scenarios opened in the field of food industry.

The combined possibilities to take milk for few seconds to high temperatures and to protect it in a sterile environment in Tetrapak briks represented a new development frontier: without the use of preservatives, milk, for the first time, could be drunk after some months from its packaging without losing most of its nutritional and organoleptic values. A new opportunity for millions of consumers, who could enjoy the basic food par excellence in a safe and economical way and in places where the daily milk distribution was not present.

STERILGARDA ALIMENTI SPA was founded in 1969 in this pioneering context and the success achieved by the new product led to focus the solid experiences in the dairy sector in the plant in Castiglione delle Stiviere, where they immediately matched with the new technologies.

They were a period of strong and steady growth for our company. Milk and cream were the leading products, packed in two sizes: 1 Litre, in a rectangular base brik, still in use nowadays, and the pyramid format, called Tetra Classic.

Our experienced staff anticipated the production of mascarpone, which, still today, is the keystone of a production cycle that was able to develop and industrialize even the oldest and most established dairy traditions.

In these years, the first partnerships with the world of the Large- scale retail distribution started.

These are the years when more and more people began to appreciate the Sterilgarda milk and this success led to automate new filling lines.

Our company started to diversify and began to produce fruit juices in 200ml and then in the 1 litre size. Big news in the packaging as well: after a first period when cellophane was used, the famous “succhini” were packed in the format everybody knows now: the tris in cardboard.

Always with a view to research, we started to produce the puddings in pots, but it is also the period of the Tomato juice, used to prepare the cocktail Bloody Mary.

While we continued the production of milk and fruit desserts, (a kind of pasteurized yogurt), the ancient production of mascarpone in canvas started to gain the trust of the dairies in Lombardia and Piemonte for the production of gorgonzola with mascarpone. Thanks to these good conditions, we achieved the objective to preserve, improve and pass on the ancient dairy traditions and also to lay the foundations for new, important investments. Sterilgarda, within a decade, became one of the protagonists in the production of mascarpone and ricotta.

The market called for new products, adapted to new lifestyles. The UHT technology was applied to milk and fruit desserts and to puddings, to cooking cream in 100gx2 pots and finally to pannacotta.

The consumer tastes and the market requirements offered the chance to start producing yogurts.

It was time for news for milk as well. New plants for lactose-free milk were installed; this milk is for all the people but especially studied for people who can not digest lactose.

The packaging market evolved towards new packaging and Sterilgarda was one of the first companies to use the new Tetra Pak formats: slim with recap, square with stream cap, 1,5 litre tetra slim, offering itself as a pilot platform for new packages.

It is not a case that since the year 2000 the Sterilgarda milk has been the “milk with cap”. Such an identification coincided with the great success of this packaging and with a steady sales growth, which made the company one the most important brands in the national food industry.

Moreover, there is the fresh spreadable cheese, which Sterilgarda produces daily with care and passion.
The rest is recent history and has a precise name: Microfiltered UHT milk. This is the product that has revolutionized the market of long life milk because it is a milk with innovative characteristics that has all the organoleptic values of a product for the refrigerator.

Sterilgarda has revolutionized not only the product but also the packaging by marrying the Tetrapak novelty, the Tetra Edge, with a larger cap that guarantees a better pouring.

The foresight and the global view of Sterilgarda have encouraged to re-start the production of UHT fruit desserts and to start the production of UHT mascarpone, especially designed for the foreign countries, because the heat treatment and their long shelf life allow to face long travels and reach far countries.

Sterilgarda has not forgotten the fruit juices sector and has introduced another big novelty: the Squeezed juices from fresh fruits and not from concentrate, and the Smoothies. These products are our Premium Line and combine the excellence of their raw materials with a treatment allowing to preserve them out of the fridge.

All the range enlargement has always been supported by the use of the best production machinery. This led to volumes growth and to cost optimization.

To date, we have:

• 31 production lines for milk, juices, cooking cream, whipping cream, béchamel sauce, cocoa- milk;
• 4 production lines for yogurt, pudding and panna cotta;
• 10 production lines for mascarpone, ricotta and spreadable cheese.

Sterilgarda confirms and strenghtens its commitment to provide to the consumers extensive guarantees in terms of quality.

Our suppliers are rigorously selected and assessed according to the high standards set by our company. Every supplier is monitored through a response level to specific requirements that are considered fundamental by our company to respect our Quality System.

All the products undergo rigorous and documented hygienic sanitary controls by an internal équipe before being admitted to the production cycle.

Sterilgarda cooperates with accredited external laboratories, public bodies and prestigious universities.

Sterilgarda produces and supplies products to hypermarkets, supermarkets and grocery stores.

Sterilgarda has a wide range of products to meet the requirements of its customers: milk, cream, béchamel sauce, puddings, pannacotta, lactose-free milk, flavored milk. The production of fresh products is also very important: mascarpone, ricotta, spreadable cheese, yogurt.

Sterilgarda pays a lot of attention to the distribution of its products. Thanks to quick and timely deliveries, we can reach and retain our customers with high quality products.

The microfiltration treatment is a natural, physical process. It removes the biological impurities from milk without reducing its nutritional values.

Milk is heat treated in a delicate way to keep its natural taste and nutritional vales.

Rigorous quality controls guarantee high safety standards.