The brain of your cheesemaking or dairy plant. From the pasteurizer to the ripening room, one single AI.

Plant OS for small dairy plants

Rela AI is a conversational Plant OS for small and mid-size dairy operations — cheesemakers, yogurt producers, small dairies (€5–50M revenue) — that need to lock down pasteurization HACCP, monitor cold chain in ripening rooms and produce auditable evidence for FSSC 22000 and ISO 22000 — without replacing the ERP or changing the PLCs.

Why this vertical?

Spain has more than 1,500 registered cheesemakers (mostly artisan or semi-industrial), Italy hosts hundreds of piccoli caseifici (one every 3,000 inhabitants in regions like Emilia-Romagna), and France, Portugal and LATAM round out a huge ecosystem of dairy SMEs. They share a profile:

• 1 site, typically with the office attached to the plant.
• 1 HTST (high-temperature short-time) pasteurizer that is the heart of HACCP.
• 2 to 6 culture / fermentation tanks.
• 1 to 4 ripening rooms (cheesemakers) or refrigerated rooms (yogurt, milk).
• 1 packaging line.
• HACCP on paper, with weekly sheets piling up in a binder.
• FSSC 22000 or ISO 22000 audits every 12 months, where the owner spends 3 days hunting for records.

Rela exists so that owner doesn't lose 3 days hunting for records, and so the auditor finds everything in a single dashboard.

Typical equipment in a small dairy plant

Rela reads Modbus TCP/RTU, OPC UA, S7, EtherNet/IP, MQTT and Reverse Connect — every protocol relevant in a modern dairy plant. Read-only, always, by contract.

Critical processes Rela covers

• HTST pasteurization. The number-one CCP: temperature held at 72 °C for at least 15 seconds (or 71.7 °C / 15s depending on country). Rela records every pasteurization with timestamp, minimum temperature in the holding tube, hold time and outcome.
• Culture and fermentation. pH curve (via sensor) and temperature per tank, active phase, total fermentation time, alarm if the curve deviates from the target profile.
• Ripening (cheese). Rooms at 8–14 °C with 80–95 % humidity, alarms if humidity drops below setpoint (cheese dries out) or if temperature rises (Listeria risk).
• Cold chain in cold storage. Finished product held below 4 °C 24/7. Excursions with grace time, automatic reporting.
• Packaging. Line OEE, stops and micro-stops, time between failures.
• CIP (Cleaning In Place). Validation of every cycle: temperature, chemical conductivity, time per phase. Audit-ready evidence.

Typical HACCP CCPs in a dairy plant

Specific regulatory compliance

A typical European dairy plant is simultaneously subject to:

• FSSC 22000 v6 (food safety, mandatory from April 2025 in transition). Covered in /docs/compliance/fssc-22000.
• ISO 22000:2018 (food safety management system).
• EU Regulation 1169/2011 (allergen labeling, expiry dates, lot — Rela contributes lot traceability).
• EC Regulation 853/2004 (specific hygiene rules for products of animal origin).
• BRCGS Issue 9 if exporting to the UK or retail chains. Covered in /docs/compliance/brcgs.

Rela produces the consolidated evidence trail covering the operational CCPs of the five standards in a single dashboard.

Documented use cases

Pricing — which tier fits your dairy plant

Deploying Rela in a dairy plant — 7 steps

1. Initial workshop (1h, remote). We list: pasteurizer (brand and model), how many ripening rooms, how many culture tanks, which CCPs are audited, which external audit is coming up. Output: prioritised list and deadline.
2. VPN setup (15 min). We generate the WireGuard .conf. The plant applies it on the router. One tunnel covers every asset.
3. Pasteurizer Modbus / OPC UA mapping (1h). Confirmation of critical registers: holding-tube T, inlet/outlet T, divert valve, batch counter. If it is Tetra Pak or GEA we ship pre-built templates.
4. Bootstrap (14 days). Rela observes normal pasteurization, rooms and CIP. Learns the ranges. No alarms, only collection and learning.
5. HACCP + cold chain activation. Define CCPs, ranges, owners, notification channels.
6. First assisted audit. At day 30, the first complete HACCP report: every pasteurized batch with temperature curve, every room excursion, every validated CIP.
7. Scale-up. Filler, compressor and labeling system are added later by priority. Rela learns each in hours, not weeks.

Key benefits

• FSSC 22000 audit without panic. The auditor asks "show me the last quarter's pasteurizations with the temperature curve" — and they appear filtered in 3 clicks.
• Cold chain in cheesemakers without surprises. Ripening at controlled humidity/temperature is what tells a quality cheese from a commodity. Rela watches both variables 24/7.
• CIP validated automatically. The typical CIP system does not produce usable reports — Rela produces them from the Modbus readings of each cycle.
• Lot traceability without writing anything. The pasteurized lot number is automatically associated with the readings. EU 1169/2011 met without spreadsheets.
• Compressor predictive maintenance. The refrigeration compressor is the #1 cause of product loss in cheesemakers. Rela detects drift weeks before failure.
• Multi-protocol. Tetra Pak on pasteurizer, Carel on rooms, Schneider on packaging — all coexisting.

Limitations and assumptions

• Rela does not operate the pasteurizer's divert valve. It reads its state, logs the event, alerts — but the safety logic stays in the certified PLC of the pasteurizer.
• For PDO/PGI cheesemakers with appellation-of-origin audits, Rela contributes complementary evidence but does not replace appellation protocols.
• pH or conductivity sensors not covered by the PLC require an additional sensor with Modbus / OPC UA / 4-20mA-convertible output.
• Rela does not certify FSSC 22000 or ISO 22000 — it produces the evidence trail the auditor reviews.

Frequently asked questions

My pasteurizer is from the 90s and has no Modbus, what do I do? If it has a PLC with any industrial output (Modbus RTU, S7-300, 4-20mA analog outputs), it can be connected. For extreme cases with no PLC, we install a lightweight bridge PLC.

Does it cover full lot traceability from farm to supermarket? Rela covers from raw milk reception to shipping. Farm-to-reception traceability lives in the existing supplier management system (typically the ERP).

Does it work for a cooperative with several small cheesemakers? Yes — multi-tenant model with one dashboard per cheesemaker and a consolidated view for the cooperative's leadership.

What if I want to export to the United States? We activate the FSMA Rule 204 module for cheese (which is on the Food Traceability List). See /docs/compliance/fsma.