Our day starts with milking our herd of Anglo Nubian and Saanen goats. Both are dairy breeds recognised by the NZ Dairy Goat Breeders Association of which we are members. The does are usually waiting for us and come onto the milking stand willingly for a little feed of grain and lucerne. They eat only NZ grown nonGMO feed that is free of soy and copra. They are machine milked and the milk is bucketed to the processing room. We don’t pump the milk through the wall because we are trying to keep it as undamaged as possible.

The milk is then immediately pasteurised using the “low temp, long time” method (as opposed to high temp ultra-pasteurisation used in grocery store products). Again, this is to keep the milk from getting damaged. Then we quickly cool the milk to culture temperature and start the cheesemaking process that lasts the rest of the afternoon. We do this each and every day of the week during our season (260 days) and we believe this is how we keep the cheese fresh and flavourful without that goaty aftertaste. The milk is NOT cooled and stored for up to three days, nor is it transported onto or off the farm. The cheese is made and packaged on farm in classic traditional farmstead cheesemaking fashion which has served the world longer than mega grocery chains and international imports.

Yes we know that “paddock to plate” is not scalable and we will never take over the goat cheese market of New Zealand this way. It is however incredibly sustainable and offers the consumer the opportunity to introduce healthy foods to their diet that have low food miles, ethically made from the milk of well cared for and loved family pets, and locally made by hand. Inspections welcome.

We wish New Zealand had more village cheesemakers, however if you don’t have fabulous local goat cheese near you, we are happy to courier our “Beautiful goat milk products” to you.