Tanzi died of pneumonia in a hospital in Parma, the city in central Italy where he had made his fortune, his family said.
The company was found to have overstated its profits and sales for years and the collapse sparked litigation worldwide against dozens of banks. Born in 1938 in the small town of Collecchio, when he was 22 he took over his grandfather's local milk company. More than four decades later the Parmalat group had about 130 factories around the world making milk, yogurt, and other food products.
The Parmalat crisis erupted in 2003 when the company said a 4 billion euro bank account held by a Cayman Islands unit did not exist, forcing management to seek bankruptcy protection and triggering a criminal fraud probe.