San Salvatore

The people behind it

San Salvatore is the farm founded by Giuseppe Pagano in the heart of the Cilento National Park, between Stio, Paestum and Giungano, and its registered name still bears his: Azienda Agricola San Salvatore di Pagano Giuseppe. The website says that from the start the farm chose EU organic certification and biodynamic preparations, in keeping with Cilento's food culture. It also tells of a friendship: between the founder and Gillo Dorfles, the critic and artist who loved Paestum and gave him the drawings that became the labels of an Aglianico riserva, the “Omaggio a Gillo Dorfles”.

Today the company is led by Andrea Pagano, its CEO, and Antonello Ricco, its director. It was they who in 2026 wanted “La Tavuliata del Bufalo”, a long table for more than three hundred people in the farm's vegetable garden to mark ten years of the Cucina San Salvatore, with local institutions, universities, associations and producers, attended by the founder Giuseppe Pagano. Also in 2026 Antonello Ricco presented the company's work on fermented buffalo milk at the BIoMA congress, and the two closed “The Buffalo Milk Revolution” in Milan during Tuttofood, the event at which San Salvatore presented its new products. The farm's emblem is the buffalo: “Ask the buffalo” is even the title of its contact page.

Sources: San Salvatore — La Dispensa · San Salvatore, una nuova visione del Cilento · Trecento persone all’orto San Salvatore per «La Tavuliata del Bufalo» · San Salvatore porta a Milano «La Rivoluzione del Latte di Bufala» · San Salvatore al BIoMA 2026 · San Salvatore - Chiedi al Bufalo, CONTATTI

What they make

At the centre is the buffalo mozzarella of Latteria San Salvatore, made only with milk from the farm's own buffaloes. The website describes it as porcelain white, with a smooth surface and a thin skin, a slightly springy texture in the first 8-10 hours after it is made and a sweet, delicate flavour, with no preservatives or colourings. The dairy also makes ricotta, fresh and aged cheeses, cream and butter.

Then there is the range that made San Salvatore known beyond the world of mozzarella: buffalo-milk yogurts and creams, the yogurts in glass jars and the creams in terracotta pots designed to be reused. Each jar carries a QR code that traces the supply chain from the cowshed to packing, a project carried out with the start-up Authentico. Its buffalo-milk yogurt received the special award for the best milk-derived product at the 2025 Italian Cheese Awards. In 2026, at Tuttofood, the company presented new products: new yogurts and creams, savoury creams and mozzarella in a jar.

Around the milk is the rest of the farm: the San Salvatore winery, with the Aglianico dedicated to Gillo Dorfles, extra virgin olive oil from the twelve-hectare olive grove at Stio, and the flour and eggs with which the Cucina San Salvatore makes its fresh pasta.

Sources: San Salvatore — Mozzarella · San Salvatore - Testimoni e autori del capolavoro della mozzarella · San Salvatore — Yogurt e cremosi di bufala · Italian Cheese Awards 2025 — archivio ufficiale · San Salvatore porta a Milano «La Rivoluzione del Latte di Bufala» · San Salvatore — La Dispensa · San Salvatore — Cucina cilentana

Ingredients and territory

The supply chain is closed: buffaloes, milk, dairy and yogurt workshop are all on the farm. The herd numbers about 800 buffaloes, which eat hay grown by the farm itself and natural seeds and breed according to their natural cycle; every year the cowsheds are tested chemically and microbiologically by outside laboratories. In the milking parlour a microchip under the skin allows the condition of each animal and the quality of its milk to be checked, while classical music plays.

The milk travels at 4 °C in tankers to the dairy, where an in-house laboratory checks its fat, flavour, colour, acidity and the absence of antibiotics before it is unloaded; it is then pasteurised. The mozzarella is made with a natural whey starter: 2.5% of cizza, the soured whey from the day before, is added to the milk along with calf rennet. Once firmed and broken, the curd is worked in water at 95 °C with hand tools until it stretches, then shaped to the required size and placed in a tank to firm up and take on salt. It takes about 4.2 litres of milk to make a kilo of mozzarella. Waste from the cowsheds and the dairy, such as whey and scotta, feeds the farm's biogas plant, which produces the herd's electricity and sends the surplus to the grid.

Sources: San Salvatore - Gli allevamenti e il rispetto dell’animale · San Salvatore - Testimoni e autori del capolavoro della mozzarella · San Salvatore — Mozzarella

Recognition

In 2025 San Salvatore won the Buffalo Mozzarella Championship, the competition organised by the journalists of Scatti di Gusto and Luciano Pignataro Wine Blog, then in its fourth edition. Of the 50 dairies assessed in the qualifying round, 16 reached the final at the Palazzo Petrucci restaurant in Naples. The 250-gram mozzarellas were judged blind by 20 judges at four tables, scoring outer appearance, inner appearance, aroma and flavour; the winners of each group were then tasted again by the whole jury, still blind. Scatti di Gusto notes that the Paestum dairy had reached the final stages in previous editions without ever making it to the deciding round. On the podium behind San Salvatore were Mozz’Art of Casoria and Agnena of Cancello e Arnone.

On 26 October 2025, at the Bergamo exhibition centre, the Italian Cheese Awards gave San Salvatore the special award for the best milk-derived product, for its buffalo-milk yogurt: one of the awards the competition's editorial team gives for merit in the dairy sector, alongside the prizes for the ten cheese categories.

The farm is also a member of the Mozzarella di Bufala Campana PDO protection consortium, in the list of dairies updated on 6 October 2026, under authorisation no. 353 of 2025.

Sources: San Salvatore, migliore mozzarella di bufala al Campionato 2025 — Scatti di Gusto · Italian Cheese Awards 2025 — archivio ufficiale · Consorzio Tutela Mozzarella di Bufala Campana — Caseifici soci al 6 ottobre 2026

Going there

San Salvatore is on the SS18 main road, in the Cafasso area of Capaccio Paestum: a short distance from the archaeological site of Paestum, the Tyrrhenian Sea and the slopes of the Alburni mountains, as its website points out. Here the farm welcomes visitors in several ways. The Cucina San Salvatore, the restaurant opened ten years ago, is where women cooks from the area make fresh pasta by hand every day with the farm's flour, eggs and herbs, and cook the typical produce of Cilento: Paestum artichokes, Cicerale chickpeas, Regina di Gorga beans and Senatore Cappelli wheat. In the pastry kitchen buffalo ricotta goes into the desserts, from Cilento cannoli to Easter pastiera, and in the dining room dishes are paired with wines from the farm's own cellar.

The contact page is where you book a table, ask about tours, educational visits and group experiences, and find information on products and stockists; the telephone number is +39 0828 199 8888. Those who cannot stop can buy the products from the online shop. Paestum, with its Greek temples, is the natural starting point for a day in Cilento, and a freshly made mozzarella, its texture still springy in the first hours, is the simplest way to begin it.

Sources: San Salvatore, una nuova visione del Cilento · San Salvatore — Cucina cilentana · San Salvatore - Chiedi al Bufalo, CONTATTI · Trecento persone all’orto San Salvatore per «La Tavuliata del Bufalo» · San Salvatore — Mozzarella

Products and flavours

Mozzarella di Bufala Campana (buffalo mozzarella)

PDO · Cheeses

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Mozzarella di Bufala Campana PDO

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

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

The place

Cilento

The Cilento, Vallo di Diano and Alburni National Park: coastline, karst mountains, Paestum, Velia and the Padula Charterhouse.

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Photo: PaestumPaestum / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Resized and converted to WebP.

The region

Campania