Granarolo acquires US-based Calabro Cheese Corp

Calabro specialises in several cheeses, including Burrata

Granarolo S.p.A. has announced the acquisition of 100 percent of Calabro Cheese Corp, US enterprise based in Connecticut, 130 km north of New York, which produces and markets fresh dairy products, in particular ricotta, mozzarella and burrata.

In 2020, Calabro Cheese Corp.’s consolidated turnover amounted to approximately $25 million, a result in line with previous years, despite the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Calabro Cheese Corp. is an American enterprise founded in 1953 as a distributor of Italian dairy products by Joseph Calabro and his father Salvatore. It boasts a modern production facility of over 5,000 square meters and a distribution platform serving the areas of New York, New England, New Jersey, as well as the southern and western areas of the United States.

Granarolo says the acquisition of Calabro will allow the company to build a strategic platform to distribute a wide range of typical and PDO products from Italy and, therefore, also to enhance an Italian raw material, at a time when there is a significant stagnation of the domestic market.

For Granarolo, foreign sales in 2020 accounted for 33 percent of total sales, a percentage that it says is increasing year by year. The company has established itself as one of the leading exporters of Italian dairy products worldwide, with an average growth of 0.4 points in volume, which corresponds to 8.8 percent of total Italian dairy products worldwide. Granarolo claims the United States has been a target country for quite some time, but the pandemic slowed the scouting operations and the finalization of an acquisition that was essential to managing such vast territories.

“The consolidation of Granarolo in the USA is an important step in the Group’s foreign growth policy,” said Gianpiero Calzolari, Chairman of Granarolo S.p.A.

“The goal is to replicate the positive performance achieved in other markets, such as the French market, where we have grown significantly, reaching a volume share of 18.5 percent of the total Italian dairy segment. The United States will be the target country of 2022. We have found a fantastic company, with operations focused on quality, high standard levels and excellent management skills. We will aim to strengthen our productions, by adding the hard cheeses to a well-established distribution platform and to boost the knowledge of our superior products on the US market.”