Monte Bianco Srl mines salt from the ground and transports the white gold in Actros and Arocs trucks
Economics & Logistics
Calcium carbonate is a necessity for many industrial production applications. Monte Bianco Srl mines salt from a tunnel quarry and transports the finished product in a fleet of Actros and Arocs trucks.
Beautiful view. Monte Bianco is based in Stallavena di Grezzana, directly at the foot of the mountain. Four Actros trucks form the backbone of the company's fleet.
One calcium molecule, one carbon molecule and three oxygen molecules: that's the simple chemical formula for calcium carbonate, a substance which occurs naturally in many types of stone, such as marble, limestone and travertine or in minerals like argonite and calcite. Or even more simply, it is also found in limescale, which often clogs up the pipes of our houses and our household electrical goods. This calcium salt is a necessity for many industrial production applications: from food colouring to paper, right up as far as pigments for paints, adsorbents for materials containing oil or animal feed and PVC.
The wide scope of uses for calcium carbonate has led to quarries opening up in regions in which this compound most frequently occurs. One of these regions is the pre-Alpine stratum to the north of Verona, where the Valpantena valley leads into the Monti Lessini. While the mountain slopes are also home to the Valpolicella vineyards, the deeper depths of the ground harbour marble and calcium carbonate quarries.
Arocs "quarry vehicle". Monte Bianco's triple-axle tipper truck battles its way through the enormous system of tunnels in the Valpantena mountain.
One of the oldest quarries is the 150,000-square-metre Saline tunnel quarry in the Alcenago district of Grezzana in Verona. The first work here began in the 1920s and is today carried out by the Monte Bianco company with its headquarters at the foot of the mountain in Stallavena di Grezzana. Monte Bianco Srl was founded in 1972 by a few entrepreneurs from the Valpantena area, including Marcellino Tacchella, who owned a calcium carbonate transport business at the time. At the end of the 1990s, Tacchella bought up the entire capital of the company together with his son Ilario, who has been managing the company since 1999.
In the present millennium, Monte Bianco has modernised the transformation plant within the company headquarters whilst also expanding the size of the premises itself, from its original 4000 square metres to the present 20,000 square metres. This, in conjunction with the 24-hour operation of the plant, now allows for a daily capacity of more than 500 tonnes to be prepared.
"The most important requirement for me is customer service, because if something goes wrong, I need it fixing fast. And up to the present day, Mercedes-Benz has always left me with a smile."
Ilario Tacchella, Managing Director of Monte
Bianco Srl
"The business activities cover several areas," explains Ilario Tacchella. "We have three product lines. Our quarry delivers pink-white stone rich in calcium carbonate, which is subsequently processed in our plant in order to produce various different grain sizes for the most varied of uses. In order to obtain different coloured granulates, we buy cut-offs from a marble processing plant. With this, we produce agglomerates for marble, tiles and flagstones for use in building projects. What's more, our mills also produce filler, a powdery substance which is used in various industrial applications.
The material which leaves Monte Bianco's premises is dispatched to numerous customers and a large quantity of it is transported using the company's own commercial vehicles." Tacchella: "Delivering on time is one of most important competitive advantages. Some customers even specify precise unloading times. Others, such as animal feed manufacturers have a continuous production approach and may therefore request night-time transport. In order to come up to all of these requirements, we have a fleet of five differently configured vehicles."
Four vehicles are Actros tractor units with silo semitrailers for
transporting powdered substances. The fifth vehicle is a triple-axle
Arocs construction site vehicle with tipper. "We decided from
around the mid-90s that we would equip our entire fleet with
Mercedes-Benz models," explains Tacchella. This clear decision in
favour of the brand with the three-pointed star occurred following a
rather notable event: "Three years after we put our first
Mercedes-Benz truck in operation, a piston shot when climbing the Cisa
pass. We called the Mercedes-Benz workshop, who told us we could keep
driving to them. The truck arrived there at around 5:30 in the
afternoon and within less than 24 hours, it was finished after having
pistons one and four changed. I was worried about getting a big bill
for the work, but the workshop manager told me that all I had to pay
for was cleaning the radiator, even though the vehicle was no longer
under guarantee. With service like that, Mercedes-Benz had won me
over."
Tacchella explains that precision and speed of customer service are the most important requirements when he chooses a commercial vehicle: "The Actros and Arocs are very reliable and I'm sure that Mercedes-Benz does everything it can in order to reduce diesel consumption. So I focus my attention on their customer service, because if something goes wrong, I need it fixing fast. And up to the present day, Mercedes-Benz customer service has always left me with a smile."
Another important aspect for the company from Veneto is safety and the firm therefore demands the very most from its commercial vehicles: "Every vehicle is equipped with its own weighing device which issues an audible warning in the cab if the maximum permissible weight of the vehicle is reached during loading. The wheels are equipped with sensors which transmit their tyre pressure and temperature via Wi-Fi to the cab and thus allow any problems to be identified in good time."
All of the firm's commercial vehicles are fitted with a retarder and, of course, the Safety Pack with Active Brake Assist: "These items of special equipment mean a higher initial price," explains the businessman. "But suffice to say that if they help us even just a single time to avoid one of our drivers getting injured, then the system has wholly fulfilled our expectations and is worth every penny."
Contact.
Ilario Tacchella, Monte Bianco Srl
Tel.: 045/866 80 04
E-mail: info@montebiancosrl.com
Photos: Michele Latorre
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