Mastellone Hermanos S.A. (mostly known for its trade name: La Serenísima) is an Argentine dairy company headquartered in the city of General Rodríguez in Buenos Aires Province. The company, founded by Antonino Mastellone in 1929, owned by Grupo Arcor and multinational Danone.
Starting as a small firm to produce cheese, the company expanded until becoming the leader in the Argentine dairy market and one of the largest companies in the country. The name La Serenísima was taken from an Italian aviation squadron that fought in the World War I.Pascual Mastellone: padre de la lechería moderna by Alfredo Sainz on Agrofy
Pascual Mastellone, son of founder Antonio, had a long tenure of chairman of the company taking over La Serenísima for more than 50 years from 1952 until 2013, when he retired due to health problems. Mastellone died in 2014.Murió Pascual Mastellone on Mitre y el Campo, 2014Murió Pascual Mastellone on El Día, 18 Aug 2014
By 2018, the company had sales for US$900 million, processing more than 3,2 million liters of milk per day.
History Development
Italian immigrant Antonino Mastellone, a cheese-maker from Sardinia who arrived in Argentina in 1925, started producing mozzarella and ricotta in his home of General Rodríguez, a pampas city west of Buenos Aires. Mastellone delivered the products himself to Buenos Aires by train, selling it in La Boca, Barracas, and San Telmo neighborhoods, where most part of Italian immigrants had settled and were consumers of those cheeses.
Antonino Mastellone married Teresa Aiello on October 26, 1929, and that date was set as the official for the establishment of the company. Mastellone brought his first delivery truck in 1935, and incorporated the company in 1942; Mastellone named his venture in honor of La Serenissima, a World War I-era Italian Air Force battalion which on orders to bombard Vienna, released a load of fliers urging peace, instead. The battalion itself had been named for the medieval Republic of Venice, which was widely known as La Serenissima (though the word also translates as the "most serene," or peaceful).Desde 1929 compartiendo momentos en familia (85th. anniversary book), 2014
By 1960, the company had become one of the few in Argentina which mass-produced pasteurized milk, allowing it to sell the product year-round. Establishing its own research laboratory in 1964, La Serenísima became the first in Argentina to provide nutritional facts on each bottle. In 1978, Mastellone Hnos. acquired rights to brand name La Martona, which having been established in 1889, was the first dairy company of Argentina.La historia de la leche La Martona on La Voz, 8 May 2019 La Martona had ceased operations in 1978, after it was declared bankruptcy due to its debts. Nevertheless, Mastellone Hnos. did not market La Martona products until 2019, when it released an economic line of milk.La Martona, el gigante de la leche que se vendió por $1 by Mariana Reinke on La Nación, 8 Apr 2019
The company pioneered the sale of lactose-free milk in Argentina in 1984, became the market leader in the sale of yogurt (whose local consumption more than doubled between 1983 and 1988) and introduced cultured milk locally, in 1988.Panorama (November 1993): Más litros para menos kilos. La Serenísima also introduced large-scale organic dairy farming in Argentina, in 1994, and became the first to fortify its products with iron sulfate.
Expanding its products In 1994, La Serenísima began selling not-from-concentrate, perishable juices through a joint venture with Tropicana, then owned by Seagram. The partnership combined La Serenísima's distribution network for chilled products with Tropicana's juice business. The venture was formed by Pascual Mastellone and Mike Harbison, of Tropicana, and later ended after Tropicana was acquired by PepsiCo.
The company entered into a joint venture with French retail foods group Danone in 1996 for the manufacture, sale and distribution of yogurt and desserts under the La Serenísima brand. It continued to develop products for the local market, including phytosterol-enriched milk in 2000, juices for infants in 2001, and linoleic acid-enriched milk in 2003. It also became more active in public service efforts, such as the establishment of an environmental impact bureau in 2002 and a fund-raising effort for the non-profit Favaloro Foundation in 2003.
La Serenísima processed more than 4.8 million tons of milk annually by the early 2000s. Through Danone, it introduced Activia to the Argentine market in 2005. In June 2009, Danone reportedly entered into talks to acquire 100% of Mastellone Hermanos S.A., La Serenísima's parent company,Wall Street Journal Online: Danone podría comprar a la argentina de lácteos La Serenísima although Mastellone's debt, reported at US$260 million, and opposition attributed to former President Néstor Kirchner complicated the negotiations.Clarín (August 4, 2009) During the 2010s, the company launched additional products in alliance with Grupo Danone and Cabrales, as well as other dairy-derived products produced by the company.
In 2019, La Serenísima added La Armonía to its line of lower-priced brands, marketing milk and dulce de leche under the Armonía name. Armonía products alternated in the market with La Martona as La Serenísima's economy products.
In September 2024, the company announced that nearly 63% of its energy supply came from renewable energy after signing an agreement with MSU Green Energy.
Products The following is a list containing the products manufactured and commercialized by Mastellone. This chart also include the other brands of the group."Nuestros productos" on La Serenísima website (1 Jul 2021)
Brand Products Milk, powdered milk, chocolate flavoured milk, dulce de leche, butter, yogurt, cream, fruit juice-combined milk, cheese Probiotic yogurts Milk, dulce de leche Desserts Probiotic yogurt Cheese, cream cheese, sauce Fruit juice-combined milk Milk, dulce de leche, yogurt Fruit juice-combined milk Fruit juice-combined milk, probiotic milk, yogurts, diet yogurts, diet desserts Desserts Probiotic yogurts Yogurt
Advertising In the 1960s, La Serenísima hired cook pioneer Petrona C. de Gandulfo (who had become a celebrity after publishing her cookbook El Libro de Doña Petrona in 1934)No sabía cocinar pero su "Libro de Doña Petrona" es el más robado de la Biblioteca Nacional by José Montero on La Nación, 18 Jul 2018 to make recipes using La Serenísima cheeses. The result was a brochure named El Recetario de Doña Petrona as an advertising piece of the company.
In 1995, the company acquired a blimp for advertising purposes. The blimp (manufactured by British company Airship Industries) was 59 m long, 19 m wide, and 20 m high. It was powered by two Porsche engines, reaching a maximum speed of 100 km/h. The airship's envelope capacity was 63,000 m3 of helium and it had a flight range of 17 hours.A 24 años del último viaje del Dirigible de La Serenísima on Todo Lechería, 3 Dec 2020
The blimp made several trips along Argentina between 1995, and November 22, 1996, when it had to make an emergency landing due to bad weather. The strong wind (100 km/h) destroyed the blimp. Fortunately, no injuries were recorded. Former F1 driver Carlos Reutemann was in the area at the moment of the accident, providing assistance to the crew.Cayó a tierra un dirigible y los dos pilotos resultaron ilesos on Clarín, 24 Nov 1996 (archived, 29 May 2003)
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