Giacomo Chiapparini, 75, was killed when a 10-metre-high shelf broke in his warehouse in the Lombardy region on Sunday evening.

This resulted in a domino effect resulting in thousands of wheels of Grana Padano cheese falling, local firefighters said.

Rescuers "had to move the cheese and the shelves by hand" in a 12-hour operation, according to firefighter Antonio Dusi.

The warehouse, in the town of Romano di Lombardia south of Bergamo, contained 25,000 wheels of Grana Padano.

Mr Chiapparini had been inspecting the ripening wheels when he was killed.

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His company has been producing Grana Padano since 2006.

One line of investigation into the accident is that a machine that rotates the wheels of cheese - a procedure that matures the dairy product - may have moved and caused the collapse.