How It's Made

Ever wondered how you start out with milk and end up with cheese? Hopefully our step-by-step guide will help!

Well, first things first, it's impossible to make good quality cheese from poor milk, so it's vital that the quality of milk is maintained. Our member farmers have, however, been consistently recognised for producing milk of a higher quality than the national average.

Step 1

We collect milk from our member farmers seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. Whilst at the farm we run initial tests for quality. Once it's brought back to our dairy the milk is pumped into a silo and pasteurised. Pasteurisation destroys any harmful bacteria without affecting the nutritional composition of the milk. After pasteurisation, the milk then travels to the cheese-making vats for the next stage.

Step 2

Next we add starter cultures. 'Starter' is a special blend of bacteria which naturally occur in milk; they build up the acidity and make the milk sour.

Step 3

Now we add vegetarian rennet, and if we're making a coloured cheese we also add Annatto. Once the rennet is added it coagulates the milk causing it to separate into 'curds' and 'whey'. The curd is cut with sharp knives and passes through a Cheddaring machine where the curds knit together. The curd is then milled into small chips and sent over to the open tables.

Step 4

As the curds are stirred and turned on the cheese tables, more and more whey is drained away.

Step 5

The curds are salted by hand. The curd chips are sent over to the block formers where the weight of the cheese in the tower helps to form a neat 20Kg block.

Step 6

The cheese is then vacuum sealed and packed into cardboard cases and set aside in a cool, dark store for maturing.The maturing process can take anything up to 2 years!

How It's Made (4) Our experienced Cheese Graders continually monitor and taste the cheese. As cheese ages, its flavour becomes fuller and more intensive.

In case you're wondering what happens to the whey it is concentrated through a reverse osmosis plant and we sell this onto a company who turns it into animal feed - we make sure that nothing is wasted!