Caseificio Jemma

The people behind it

Jemma is the brand of the Iemma family, who raise buffaloes in Battipaglia and have made mozzarella there since 1936; the farming company is called Eredi di Gaetano Iemma. The story told on the website begins in the early twentieth century, with a farm that was among the first in the area to keep buffaloes in barns and to introduce stall milking, when free-range herding was the rule. The family, the website recalls, was among those who reclaimed the Sele plain. In 1936 the first farm dairy opened; in the 1930s and 1940s the agronomist Gaetano Iemma, born in 1907, began the genetic selection of the herd, and in the 1970s a younger Gaetano Iemma of the family, born in 1945, installed one of the first automatic milking systems for buffaloes.

Today the third generation is at work. Dr Lazzaro Iemma, the company's veterinarian, personally oversees the herd and the buffaloes' feeding. On 29 May 2026, in the Salone Genovesi of the Salerno Chamber of Commerce, Lazzaro and Evelina Iemma received the Premio Imprese Storiche Salernitane, awarded to the company in the eighty-years-in-business category; the Chamber of Commerce listed Eredi di Gaetano Iemma among the winners.

Sources: Caseificio Jemma — Chi siamo · Caseificio Jemma — Azienda agricola · Caseificio Jemma — Premiato tra le Imprese Storiche Salernitane · Camera di Commercio di Salerno — Celebrata la storia dell'imprenditoria salernitana: consegnati i premi alle aziende con 80 e 100 anni di attività

What they make

The signature product is Mozzarella di Bufala Campana PDO, made here from raw milk, with no heat treatment, within twelve hours of milking at the Via Velia dairy. The website calls it the mozzarella of Battipaglia, and the dairy's own page says it in dialect: the mozzarella of "Battipaja". Around the mozzarella there are more than thirty products: fresh stretched-curd cheeses such as braids, bocconcini, ciliegine and scamorza, aged and semi-aged cheeses, ricotta, yoghurt, ice cream, spoon desserts, buffalo charcuterie and meat. Among the awards the company lists are a first prize at the Casearia Awards for its braid and AgriYogurt's Ottimo Yogurt diplomas.

Every pack carries a QR code from the Authentico system, recorded on a blockchain: scanning it shows where the milk comes from, what the buffaloes eat, who made the product and when, through four certified steps running from fodder production to milk, processing and packing. The farm shop next to the dairy is open every day, and in Battipaglia there is also a shop in the town centre, on Via Pastore. The family also ships its cheeses to customers through the online shop on its website.

Sources: Caseificio Jemma — sito ufficiale · Caseificio Jemma — Chi siamo · Caseificio Jemma — Caseificio · Caseificio Jemma — Contatti · Caseificio Jemma — Prodotti

Ingredients and territory

Jemma's supply chain is closed: all the milk comes from the family herd at Cioffi, in the municipality of Eboli, home to about a thousand Italian Mediterranean buffaloes. The family farms more than 260 hectares between Battipaglia, Eboli and Paestum, and the buffaloes eat only fodder grown on the farm, fresh, as hay or as silage, with no industrial feed. The herd is listed among "Gli allevamenti del benessere", the animal-welfare farms of the buffalo sector, and herd health is coordinated in-house by the company veterinarian.

In the fields the company works with researchers. With the Federico II University of Naples it developed a diet rich in fresh fodder to improve the profile of the milk; since 1998 it has worked with CNR-ISAFOM, whose EcoCioffi project measures flows of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and volatile organic compounds in real time, turning the farmland into an open-air laboratory. In its section on land and fodder the website names the current projects VALFOCAM and CEREAMICO. Part of the energy comes from the farm's solar panels. The milk collected at Cioffi reaches the Battipaglia dairy and becomes mozzarella within twelve hours of milking: a short journey the company sums up in its motto, "from fodder to cheese".

Sources: Caseificio Jemma — Contatti · Caseificio Jemma — Azienda agricola · Caseificio Jemma — sito ufficiale · Caseificio Jemma — Chi siamo

Recognition

The Campionato della Mozzarella, organised by Scatti di Gusto and Luciano Pignataro Wine Blog, compares buffalo mozzarellas in blind tastings: the 250-gram samples are bought as any customer would and reach the jury anonymised. In the 2022 edition Jemma won the Mozzarella di Bufala Campana PDO category, beating Il Casolare of Alvignano, in the province of Caserta, in the final; the year before, in the first edition, it had finished second. Scatti di Gusto describes a bracket in which Caserta started ahead and Jemma came back round after round all the way to the final.

In 2023 came a second consecutive win in the same category, this time against Caseificio Caputo of Teverola. Twenty-two judges scored out of a hundred, giving ten points to outer appearance, twenty to inner appearance, twenty to smell and fifty to taste. In 2026 the prize for the product was joined by recognition of the company's history: the Salerno Chamber of Commerce included Eredi di Gaetano Iemma among the businesses honoured for eighty years of activity, at the ceremony on 29 May devoted to Salerno's historic firms.

Sources: Scatti di Gusto — Campionato della Mozzarella 2022: vincono Jemma e Giuseppe Morese · Scatti di Gusto — Campionato della Mozzarella 2023: Jemma e Vannulo le migliori · Camera di Commercio di Salerno — Celebrata la storia dell'imprenditoria salernitana: consegnati i premi alle aziende con 80 e 100 anni di attività · Caseificio Jemma — Premiato tra le Imprese Storiche Salernitane

Going there

The dairy and its farm shop are at Via Velia 2, in Battipaglia, open every day from 8 am to 8 pm; the phone number is 0828 300336 and the email address info@caseificioiemma.com. In the town centre, at Via Pastore 9, there is a second shop, open Monday to Saturday. The herd is at Cioffi, near Eboli, and the website presents the three places as stages on a "Traiettoria del Gusto", a path of taste: the land, the dairy's know-how, the flavour.

Guided farm visits are arranged by booking, all year round, for groups of at least twenty people: schools, travel agencies, companies or private parties. The tour lasts about an hour and a half and begins with a walk through the fields and barns to meet the buffaloes and see the supply chain up close, ending with a tasting of buffalo cheeses and buffalo charcuterie in the family's historic farmhouse. Requests are sent through the form on the website, and a staff member calls back to confirm the date and details. For a longer stay the family offers the Porta Sirena agriturismo, an old restored farmhouse in the Paestum area, with rooms and country cooking.

Sources: Caseificio Jemma — Contatti · Caseificio Jemma — Visite e degustazioni · Caseificio Jemma — sito ufficiale · Caseificio Jemma — Chi siamo

Products and flavours

Mozzarella di Bufala Campana (buffalo mozzarella)

PDO · Cheeses

Open the product page →

Mozzarella di Bufala Campana PDO

History, stretching and hand-cutting, PDO rules, landscapes and practical tips for recognising and enjoying buffalo-milk mozzarella.

Read the guide →

Photo: Popo le Chien / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Resized and converted to WebP.

The region

Campania