Fresh, pure and tasty – from organic Mt. Domet Double Cream to sheep’s milk Monte Cristo, Whitestone’s award-winning cheeses are a perfect reflection of the pristine natural environment that created them, says Managing Director Bob Berry.
“The distinctly regional flavours of our cheeses capture the character of North Otago where we are located, from its lofty mountains, quality pastures and clean air to the windswept coastline.”
The Whitestone Cheese award-winning range of 18 hand-crafted varieties includes organic camembert, feta, brie, double cream plus their own unique semi-soft varieties, Airedale, Farmhouse and Livingstone Gold, and 2006 National Cheese Champion Windsor Blue.
In its first international competition Whitestone was awarded Gold at the recent Brisbane International Cheese Awards, ahead of many of Europe’s best known blue cheeses.
Mr Berry says Whitestone’s high profile medal success has been a great sales asset in New Zealand and internationally.
“For example, we are now listed in key Australian and major US supermarket chains on the strength of our successes in the New Zealand Champions of Cheese Awards. Our Windsor Blue won the Champion Export Cheese in 2003 and National Champion in 2006, while our cheesemaker, Jason Tarrant, was named Champion Cheesemaker in 2005. We’ve also been awarded numerous Gold Medals for Windsor Blue and other cheeses we produce.
“Winning medals does not only help to open doors for listing in new outlets, but has also boosted sales of our cheeses in existing overseas retail outlets.”
Whitestone cheeses are sold in retail outlets in both Sydney and Brisbane, and Mr Berry says winning a gold medal at the recent Brisbane cheese awards will give sales a boost in Queensland.
“Concentrating on selected markets and taking part in awards and food and beverage shows located in key cities has been a good strategy for us in Australia.”
He says support from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise to attend trade events in Australia has also been a key to success, giving the company exposure and feedback on the potential opportunities for its products in the Australian market.
Mr Berry says Whitestone’s Windsor Blue is New Zealand’s most decorated cheese winning nine trophies and ten gold medals, before taking out the national title of Cuisine Champion of Champions 2006.
Each hand-crafted Windsor Blue is dry salted and turned twice weekly while it matures for sixty days in a humidity/temperature-controlled cheese room. The outcome is a soft gracious texture with a creamy “sensual mouth feel”. The flavor created by the blue culture balances with the rich cream cheese, creating a unique style which is not over powering and a taste sensation for cheese lovers of all ages.
Whitestone Cheese is New Zealand’s largest producer of organic specialty cows’ milk cheeses, says Mr Berry. It also makes a number of award-winning sheep’s milk cheeses, as well as vegetarian cheeses which it exports to the USA and Australia Its organic cow milk cheeses are registered with AGRIQUALITY, USDA Natural Organic Programme and IFOAM.
“Our organic story starts with the soil where the use of artificial fertilisers and harmful sprays is not permitted as is the use of growth promoters, antibiotics or artificial drenches. Our happy contented cows are given special treatment, having large paddocks, ample grazing and a stress-free environment.”
Factory and intensive livestock farming is prohibited under the organic certification, as is the use of growth promoters, antibiotics, artificial drenches and chemical parasite controls. The making of the cheese is also stringently monitored for compliance criteria. No artificial additives are used, while the rennets, starters and cultures are all natural products.
“Whitestone cheese-making craft is a natural process, with the organic certification guaranteeing the best principles of natural and wholesome food production.”
www.whitestonecheese.co.nz
Cheese – One of the World’s Oldest Foods
A concentrated source of protein, vitamins and minerals, cheese is a nutritious food made from the milk of cows and other mammals and one of the world’s oldest foods.
In New Zealand the first dairy factories producing butter and cheese appeared in the latter part of the 19th century, at a time when the early settlers were using cattle and dairy cows to break in new bush land. The cheese produced was usually Cheddar, a hard cheese able to stand the rigours of a three-month journey by ship to the distant markets in Europe.
The End of the Small Cheese Factory
These small factories dotted the landscapes of the fertile plains, and, as a horse and cart could only go so far on a hot summer’s day before the milk curdled, they were all only about 10km apart. These factories remained very much untouched until the coming of motor trucks in the 1920s, at which time the factories began to amalgamate, becoming bigger and bigger, and fewer and fewer.
One huge company, dominating the dairy industry and owning both milk producers and processing factories, now moves milk throughout New Zealand by tanker or by train, to be processed into a huge range of dairy products.
Evansdale Cheese – Artisan Cheese Producer
Mass produced cheeses lack the charm, delicacy and appeal of a hand made cheese. Interest in price, shelf life, and uniformity of flavour are the very opposite of fine cheeses made in small quantities by artisan producers.
Artisan producers such as Evansdale Cheese who now make the best cheeses, doing as little as possible to interfere with nature and with more interest in preserving the flavour of the elements within the milk, in order to produce a cheese of character.
About Cheese
Here's an update from the New Zealand Specialist Cheesemakers Association...
Cheese has been enjoyed for centuries; once it was discovered that domesticated animals could be milked, it was only a matter of time before cheese was produced!
Legend has it that cheese was 'discovered' by an unknown Arab nomad who filled a saddlebag with milk to sustain him on a horse-back journey across the desert. Stopping for a drink some hours later, he discovered the milk had separated into a pale watery liquid and solid white lumps. Because the saddlebag, which was made from the stomach of a young animal, contained a coagulating enzyme known as rennin, the milk had been effectively separated into curds and whey by the combination of the rennin, the hot sun and the galloping motions of the horse.
Archaeologists say that as far back as 6000 BC cheese had been made from cows and goats milk and stored in tall jars. Egyptian tomb murals of 2000 BC show butter and cheese being made, and other murals which show milk being stored in skin bags suspended from poles demonstrate a knowledge of dairy husbandry at that time.
It is likely that nomadic tribes of Central Asia found animal skin bags a useful way to carry milk on animal backs when on the move. Fermentation of the milk sugars would cause the milk to curdle and the swaying motion would break up the curd to provide a refreshing whey drink. The curds would then be removed, drained and lightly salted to provide a tasty and nourishing high protein food.
So, cheesemaking around the world gradually evolved in two main ways. The first was the liquid fermented milks such as yoghurt, koumiss and kefir. The second through allowing the milk to acidify to form curds and whey. Whey could then be drained either through perforated earthenware bowls or through woven reed baskets or similar material.
In New Zealand, it is said that Reverend Samuel Marsden imported New Zealand's first cows to provide cheese, milk and butter for his missionaries in 1814. Colonists soon found that New Zealand was ideal dairying country. The gold rush in the 1860's brought an influx of cheese-loving Europeans who used the local milk to create the products they’d savoured back home.
New Zealand’s first dairy factory was established in 1871 and today a range of large-scale businesses and artisan producers like Te Mata Cheese Co. are keeping pace with the nation’s ever-increasing demands for delicious, hand-crafted cheese.
