Torre Lupara dairy farm in Campania, Italy, is one of the largest producers of buffalo mozzarella in the world. The skills needed to gather the milk, work the factory’s machines, and deploy multiple generations’s worth of hands-on knowledge, have been passed down through the Iemma family, who continually place emphasis on how this particular cheese is considered DOP Mozzarella di Bufala.

A cheese considered DOP is in a designated category of its own, as DOP stands for “Denominazione di Origine Protetta”, or Protected Designation of Origin, according to Walks of Italy. So for this cheese to be considered DOP buffalo mozzarella, “the buffalo can only live in this particular part of the world, which is Campania,” says Manuela Vigliotta, Torre Lupara’s head of communications.