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Petra®’s Flours are the state-of-the-art expression of an Italian family of millers who have gradually combined, like no one else, the quality of craftsmanship with avanguarde technology to transfer the inestimable energy of wheat grains to the table.

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    Wheat Landraces.
    ​Petra Molino Quaglia will be a proud sponsor of the 1st International Conference of Wheat Landraces organized in Bologna by IFOAM. The share to the congress will be a new step ahead for the project Petra® Evolutiva, which has  born by an alliance between Molino Quaglia and the Sicilian farmers that apply the participatory breeding to create new populations of organic wheats. Bologna, Jun 13th - 15th. Read the Program >

    Evolutiva's new crop.
    Sunday 10th and Monday' 11th of  June the Sicilian farmers of Simenza have completed the new crop of the evolutionary wheat for the next grinding of Petra Evolutiva. With great satisfaction and high quality. Read more >

    PizzaUp® 2018


    The 13th Edition of the only Technical Symposium of Italian Pizza. This year in Vighizzolo d'Este - Nov 5th - Nov 7th.
    Enter the site of the last edition >

    FAMILY MILLERS
    SINCE 1914

    Molino Quaglia is a family business that from 1914 has milled only the finest grains.


    At the age of 13, Angelo Quaglia, the founder of today's mill, left his family who had been millers since 1856, to start a small stone-grinding mill built on rafts moved by the waters of the river Adige. Then, in 1937, he moved from the river to dry land, at Vighizzolo d d'Este (near Padua), where the mill grew to industrial sizes (1947) under the guidance of his son Annito Quaglia.

    Records and awards for the high production levels were not long in coming, and in 1986, it became the first Italian mill to build a plant to roast cereals, Instead, in 1996, it was the first in Italy to obtain ISO 9002 quality certification, and only two years later, was recognized as the most advanced in the 4,000q/24h production band. It was one of the first mills in Italy to obtain the coveted BRC quality certification.


    Since 1989, the company has been run by the three siblings Lucio, Chiara and Andrea Quaglia.

    It is currently the only industrial-sized Italian mill to have developed a modern stone-grinding process that uses the most advanced technologies for cleaning the grain of foreign bodies, weeds and mycotoxins, in a production environment that protects the flour from external contamination, all the way from the millstone to the sack.

    Meanwhile, Molino Quaglia's new stone grinding wheels see only common wheat grown in Italy with a short supply chain that helps both the environment and the consumer: integrated agriculture techniques, preservation using the cold technique instead of insecticides, thorough cleaning of the silos that store the wheat and flour, and Italy's only state-of-the-art optical sorter to guarantee traceability from field to fork and the maximum food safety achievable today

    Among the unique features of Molino Quaglia is the "fabbrichetta" (little factory) for toasting bran and wheat germ and, since 2013, a plant for the germination and assisted fermentation of cereals and pulses in a mother yeast culture, which boasts a patent that is exclusive in Europe. 

    Then an adjacent progressive milling plant with cast-iron cylinders that is the most advanced in Italy, where the wheat, personally selected year after year wherever the climate offers the highest quality, is transformed into fine flours for professionals of bread, pizza and pastry making, and cooking in general.


    The expressions of a family of millers who have gradually combined, like no one else, the quality of craftsmanship with state-of-the-art technology that helps transfer the inestimable energy of wheat grains to the table.


    However, flour from the mill amounts to nothing if the tradition of how to use it best becomes lost. The old Molino Quaglia building, no longer home to millstones, was given new life in 2002 as a school known as "Il Laboratorio®", which, with its 5 storeys kitted out for production and multimedia teaching, has now become the largest, most complete business school inside an Italian mill, where it is possible to learn the “white art” in the very place where the main ingredient of our diet comes from, and, at the same time, management and sales techniques to make your own company successful. Il Laboratorio® gave birth to the projects Università della Pizza®, Accademia del Pane®, PizzaUp® and Pasticceria Dinamica®.


    And, to publicize our daily work, the development of non-stop marketing and communication that know no equal in Italy's milling sector. A complex, highly innovative activity which in just a few years, thanks to the Petra® flours, has given flour a "face", dusting away the ashes of anonymity that had covered it in the post-war years of prosperity.


    Day in day out, Molino Quaglia works to demonstrate that good flavour and technology can bring today's consumers the flavours of yesteryear with the nutritional balance and food safety demanded by contemporary living.


    FLOUR THAT LEAVES A MARK

    The mark of the wheat grain from field to fork comes from the marks traced by a story of passion, intuition, ability, and links to family and tradition that began over a century ago, and which is still one of the ingredients that make our flour unique.


    the mark of the stone

    1913 - Angelo Quaglia leaves his miller father's home to open his first mill on two rafts anchored on the loop in the Adige river at Sant'Urbano (Padua). A mill that left an indelible mark on the next 3 generations, like the grooves that his hands carved in the bare stone of the wheels. 

    the mark of the school

    2007 - sees the birth of the projects Università della Pizza® (University of Pizza), Accademia del Pane® (Academy of Bread) and Migliori Pasticcieri d'Italia® (Best Pastry Chefs in Italy). For the first time in Italy a business school trains artisan bakers to produce, organise the kitchen, and manage their own business. This is above all a school that teaches how to come up with new recipes, with one eye on traditional ingredients and the other on nutritional balance in tune with modern ways of life. Over time, this would give birth to the techniques of  Pizzeria Dinamica® (Dynamic Pizza Making), Panificazione Dinamica® (Dynamic Bread Making) and Pasticceria Dinamica® (Dynamic Pastry Making).

    the mark of countryside

    2012 - The availability of wheat cultivated in Italy in sufficient quantity to mill Petra® is finally a reality: from September 2012, each sack of Petra® contains wheat from sustainable agriculture, grown just a short distance from the mill between Rovigo and Ferrara, traceable all the way from sowing to the mill with the compilation of "Quaderni di Campagna" electronic notebooks and checked during growth by a team of experts who advise farmers according to the quality specifications drawn up by the Emilia Romagna Regional Government. The mark of the countryside that was missing in an Italy that depends on common wheat supplied from abroad to the tune of 60%. A contribution to the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, given that the wheat arrives at the mill by road in just 40 minutes.

    the mark of the art

    1989  - Lucio, Chiara and Andrea Quaglia take the helm of a company by now renowned and appreciated even outside the region's borders. It would shortly be the year of heading towards the national market: in 1998, the common wheat mill started operating with the most advanced technology in Europe and the siblings presented what, the following year, the press would nickname the "flour spaceship"*, celebrating its launch with an annual contemporary art exhibition spread over the new plant's 7 storeys. The slogan "Where Flour Becomes Art"* is born.

    rassegna stampa
    1999 L'astronave della farina  read it 

    1999 Un impianto all'avanguardia  read it 
    1999 Un molino a regola d'arte  read it 
    2000 Dove la farina diventa arte  read it 

    the mark of the family

    2008 - the birth of Petra®, a flour line that is uncompromising in terms of flavour and nutritional quality. For the first time in Italy, a stone  mill would use state-of the-art technology to grind common wheat after the most thorough cleaning possible. Impurities and toxins are eliminated by rejecting (and not just cleaning) defective and "infected" grains, because only in this way is it possible to eat the husk with no risk to health. The idea was born from the desire to restore substance to  age-old and family knowledge of wheat and ancient stone-grinding techniques; a forward-looking vision that anticipated the increasing need of consumers to rediscover the flavours of yesteryear with a contemporary note.

    the mark of life

    2014  - the birth of Bricks di PetraViva®, revolutionary ingredients that, in their pre-germinated version, are the forerunners of food that is natural, tasty and nutritious, but in smaller portions. The Bricks are cereals and pulses, whole or reduced into powder, to mix with Petra® in countless combinations to design tailor-made flavour and nutritional profiles; a unique way to sign a recipe like no one else.  Genuine bricks of flavour and nutrients to build in a natural way food for daily consumption that caters to the growing demands of a diet that is more attentive to people's wellbeing.

    the mark of the stranger

    2003 - a new form of communication is born: the old family mill becomes Il Laboratorio and is reborn in the form of an interdisciplinary centre to learn dough and proving techniques, and the creation of recipes. This was an idea of Chiara Quaglia, who, at the same time, entrusted Piero Gabrieli with the management of marketing. Together, in the years to come, they would build a brand on a generic, "poor" product, flour, giving it value through training activities, symposiums, on-land and on-line marketing, and by organising events featuring immersive experiences, speaking directly to the end consumer.  The starting point: the simple observation that all kind of flours tended to be faceless, ingredients that both the consumer and professional user perceived as generic and replaceable. Flour was considered a stranger with no name on the menus of restaurants, pizzerias, bakeries and pastry shops. From that point, every step forward served to give our ingredient a clear identity, restoring lost values. Today, our flour has a face, a name, and unparalleled goodness.

    the mark of history

    2011  - Petra® enters the homes of cookery lovers.  With the new 1kg bag and then with even larger packets, along with the realization that home-made dough, perhaps using mother yeast (sourdough), could be learned and regularly applied in daily life. A pastime that creates in end consumers a thirst for knowledge of ingredients along with dough-making and proving techniques well known to our grandmothers, but forgotten by recent generations. A transparent flour bag with the history of the mill on it hand-drawn using simple lines, a history that invites whoever uses Petra® to enrich it with their own experiences and creativity in the kitchen.

    the mark of passion

    Today  just like the first day , the mark of passion fills every thought, action, and relationship. A day doesn't pass that is not spent in the search for better people, better grains and technologies that respect the family tradition. In turn, we respect the life that nature infuses every grain of wheat with, and work to transfer this intact to consumers' tables. To do this it is not enough to produce, we also need to communicate , to let everyone know just what a good flour is.

    @ 2012-2018, PiCi. In concessione ad Arte Innovativa degli Alimenti srl via Roma 49 - Vighizzolo d’Este (PD)

    +39 0429 649110

    Molino Quaglia via Roma 38 Vighizzolo d'Este (PD)