THE CRAFT OF CHEESEMAKING

Being based in Somerset, the home of English cheese, we know that every proper Cheddar cheese is different, and so is ours. If put on the spot, we’d say its defining points were its creaminess, crumbliness and smoothness. That’s how we (and millions of customers) like it, so that’s how it’s stayed for over 160 years.

What’s our secret? We haven’t changed, and we’ve stubbornly kept to our belief that some things are sacred. Our recipe is over a century old and so precious to us that we keep it under lock and key in a safe. Although many things have changed in the world, we’ve never changed that.

Close behind, at over 50 years old, is our live starter culture, which is the micro bacteria that cause the Cheddar to develop their taste. This is what makes our Cheddar so creamy but just as important is that we refuse to use a frozen, “stabilised” culture but instead alter it slightly depending on the time of year and the milk that our cows give us. For us, this is part of the art of cheesemaking, and very important.

The crumbliness and smoothness come from a combination of different factors, most of them just as traditional. There’s the temperature we mature our Cheddar at, which is a bit warmer than most but vital for the flavour. There are the wooden maturing boxes we use, which ensure that the cheese keeps its shape. Some of them are old enough for us to remember from our childhoods.

Some of these things make the process longer and trickier, but we’ve never been afraid of taking the long way round. We don’t do them for no reason, but because they matter. Our Cheddar wouldn’t be the same if we changed them.

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