It was written in his destiny that he would be a miller. Nothing strange given that his father and grandfather were millers, but although Giuseppe Pignacca had grown up with bread and rollermills, he had chosen to take a different path, he wanted to be a technical expert. Born in 1957 in Africa because at the time his father worked for an Italian mill in Ethiopia (Tosca mill based in Castel San Giovanni, Piacenza-Italy), an Italian colony at the time. At the age of 17 he returned to Italy to take up one’s studies as an expert, but evidently the mill appeal was too strong that in 1977 he abandoned his studies to enter the Ocrim Milling Technology School which at the time was based in the downtown of Cremona. Giuseppe still remembers very well his first assignment as assistant miller in Saudi Arabia (Riyadh and Dammam complex) and perhaps his bosses also remember it because his curiosity and desire to learn were such that they pushed him to ask for constant explanations.
From 1982 to 1984 he was employed as production manager in Bogasari Flour Mills (Makassar unit, Sulawesi Island), one of the largest milling companies in the world, in Indonesia. It was an important training experience that increased his technical competence allowing him, in 1985, to test his first plant for Wellington Flour Mills in the Philippines. With this wealth of experience, he returned to Ocrim as a milling tester. In the meantime, he got married – we are in 1990 – and began his career as a technologist and his experience as a teacher of milling technology.
45 years have passed, Giuseppe has lost count of how many milling plants has tested, many carried out at the North Dakota Mill and Elevator (Grand Forks, USA) becoming part of that big family. Now, it’s time to retire and enjoy a well-earned and relaxation. Greeting him with the affection he deserves, he let slip an emotion that is rare to see in a shy and reserved person like him. It isn’t a farewell because we are certain that he will come to visit us often and to check that his young colleagues maintain their curiosity and passion for this profession which has its roots in the past but with its feet firmly planted in the present. A present that in Ocrim is cultivated day by day in the name of increasingly innovative technology to guarantee superior quality.