Family business in Lombardy dairy sector (late 19th-early 20th century)

The production and trade of cheese increased in the last decades of the nineteenth century, when new scientific knowledge, process techniques, conserving and transport systems allowed the exportation of a growing amount of dairy products. Small family firms shifted into medium or big multinational enterprises, controlling the purchasing of milk from the farms of the Po valley, founding new mechanized plants within the plain and the hills and selling the production on international markets. Names as Locatelli, Galbani, Invernizzi (all coming from Valsassina and the Como area) are those of the most important industries emerging in this period, whose brands will last until today. The paper tries to enlighten the origin of these family enterprises, the strategies of growing which they pursued, the organization of production and the system of financing and trading from the last decades of the nineteenth century to 1914.