Fra Noi Embrace Your Inner Italian
Caputo Cheese took home first place in the Fresh Mozzarella category at the 2024 World Championship Cheese Contest.
The Melrose Park-based cheesemaker’s “nodini” was crowned the winner at the contest, which took place in Madison, Wisconsin, WBBM Newsradio reported. “Nodini” means “little knot” in Italian.
Renzo Berardi, sales manager at Caputo’s, credited the way the cheese is created with the win. “I think it stems (from) the flavor profile and the uniqueness of this item — the hand-tied, the crafting of this cheese. We bring the tradition of handmade products.”
Berardi said the nodini has a “chewy bite just in the unique notch shape that you typically don’t see … with this product,” adding that “this product is delicate in texture, rich and creamy and flavorful.”
Caputo’s makes about 120,000 pounds of mozzarella each week, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. “I learned from some of the greats. We studied the process of making this product. We’ve more or less stuck to our traditions of the past 30 years to continue to make a consistent and very rich and creamy product,” Natale Caputo, president of Caputo Cheese, told the newspaper.
The company began in 1978 on Chicago’s Northwest Side as a small cheese shop, selling small bulk quantities of various types of domestic and imported cheeses, its website explains.
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