Gabriele Caputo and Adriana Alonzi say the secret to their melt-in-the-mouth mozzarella is happy Scottish cows

Trading as SS Dei Naufragati CAOS, they are fast winning a reputation for their traditional mozzarella, made in Leith with Scottish milk, which regularly sells out at Edinburgh and Glasgow's weekly farmers' markets and is available through Iain Mellis and at restaurants all over the capital.

"In our opinion it's better than Italian mozzarella because it comes from happy cows. The south of Italy is very dry but here the cows have plenty of green grass to eat. They have a better life and the milk they produce is much better and so is the cheese," says Caputo.

Caputo came to Scotland ten years ago, initially to work in restaurants, then started his own business selling Italian cheese produced by small farms. While working in the San Marco restaurant in Stockbridge four years ago he met Adriana, who worked next door in the chip shop, both premises owned by her father.

Caputo was settled in Scotland but missed the mozzarella which is a speciality of his home region of Basilicata in southern Italy. Puzzled by the lack of a good home-made mozzarella despite the abundance of milk in Scotland, the pair decided to set up a business making their own two years ago.

"We missed mozzarella a lot. I'm from a mountainous, wooded region where there are many small villages and many artisanal and hand-crafted products such as mozzarella, salami and prosciutto. And we were amazed by the quality of milk available in Scotland compared to Italy where there's hardly any fresh milk available so people use UHT instead. Here there is plenty, yet there no fresh cheese in the supermarkets, so we decided to make mozzarella."

Caputo was able to draw on his childhood knowledge - his home town of Potenza is famed for its mozzarella and his shepherd grandfather made various cheeses throughout his childhood. He was also given an ancient recipe by a 90-year-old cheesemaker friend.

"Our mozzarella smells different to supermarket versions because we use organic milk, whereas in Europe they can use products that have been genetically modified. We get our milk from the Organic Milk Suppliers Co-operative and it's collected from two or three farms in the mornings and delivered to us by 11am. We make the cheese that day and it's ready five or six hours later."

Such is the demand for their melt-in-the-mouth mozzarella that the couple are opening a shop at their factory in Stewartfield in Edinburgh's Canonmills, where customers can also buy their popular ricotta, smoked scamorza and provolone.

Inside the creamery clouds of steam from the boiling water used to stretch the cheese billow as the pair toil away. "We live like mushrooms four days a week, in the steam and the heat," says Caputo. "Sometimes we shout and it's very frantic, but we both enjoy the job. We use all of our senses - sight, taste and smell - to check things like the acidity of the milk. The cheese comes out so much more beautiful like that.

"The key to mozzarella is that it's a very fresh cheese and should be kept moist. There should be live bacteria in it and if it's been around for five or six days it's dead. There is no point in eating industrial mozzarella. It's worthless. In Italy they wouldn't eat it. It's not a mature cheese like parmesan that improves with age. So those supermarket cheeses have no nutritional value at all," says Caputo.

At 12 a kilo, or 1.50 per ball, their cheese is flying off their stall and this pair of cheesemakers certainly seem blessed.

"The taste? It's another world. It's nutty and has a very strong flavour because it comes from raw milk. We also package it like they do in Italy, straight from the water and put it in a bag. In my home town people buy it fresh in the morning, leave it sitting at room temperature for a couple of hours, then use it straight away. It shouldn't go in the fridge as that destroys it - it's available fresh every day anyway."

And with the shop opening at their creamery next month, it's getting easier to make like the Italians and have a taste of la dolce vita with fresh mozzarella every day. Happy cows, happy people.

• This article was first published in the Scotland on Sunday on January 16, 2011