Hard Cheese

Now readers of this blog may think that I am becoming obsessed with milk products. But for keen readers of yesterday’s Guardian you will find that where Sheppard’s Rambles leads the Guardian follows. 

http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2014/dec/18/british-cheese-makers-france-exports

The Guardian featured article was about the surprising report that British cheese exports increased by 8.2% in September, being particularly strong to France. So why the resurgence of British cheese?

Well keen readers of my previous blog will have by now researched the Milk Marketing Board. Despite my eulogy it was probably wrong in one aspect, when the MMB was in existence farmers were forced to sell all their milk production to that body. This may have been great for prices but crucially this meant that farmers had no surplus milk to make cheese or anything else. So the growth of cheese making is to make use of surplus milk.

But then why should there be a thriving export market to France. For those cynics amongst you the view will be that there is no comparison between good hard cheddar and smelly runny Brie. Well you would be wrong it is primarily down to the UK market dominated as you might think by the major supermarkets. It is difficult for relatively small producers to get a presence on the shelves of the big supermarkets. So it is easier to develop an export market.

Which takes me back to a cheese experience on our recent holiday in Northumberland. In a restaurant we ate a fantastic cheese produced on a farm in Doddington. This is in the wilds of Northumberland, near Wooler, very close to the Scots border. A less commercial operation could not be imagined, but just as we were about to leave we spotted a lady. On enquiry she said that they did not open in the middle of winter but what did I want. After finding out what was available she returned with a great smoked cheese, and one that had been “washed” in Newcastle brown ale. The taste was absolutely fabulous, and even better the price was discounted. So my message is when in Wooler visit Doddington farms. It looks as though they produce ice cream in summer, another artisan product owing its existence to surplus milk.