Slow start turns into a big cheese
TRADITIONAL European cheesemakers were the inspiration behind Witches Chase Cheese Company, now well into its second decade.
The North Tamborinebased operation, founded in 2004 by Andre and Meredith Morris, is a fixture in the small mountain community and attracts a large contingent of visitors on weekends.
Now based on Long Rd, after a move from its original Beacon Rd premises, the operation encompasses a cheese factory, brewery, bistro, and cheese shop.
The story began when Sunshine Coast-born Andre Morris and Meredith, who hails from Canada, moved to Australia in the early 2000s after sailing around the world.
Mrs Morris said she long had a fascination with cheesemaking.
“My ex-husband’s father was a cheesemaker in Scotland. Living in Europe, cheese is a part of life. You eat it every day. Wherever you go there are small and unique cheese shops.”
After moving to Australia, they bought a dairy farm at Kilcoy, in the Somerset Re- gion, where they planned on building a cheese factory.
However, Neil Willman, who had been teaching them how to make cheese with Carole Willman, advised them not to proceed.
“He said: ‘You’re not going to make it, you don’t have the traffic flow where you are, just give it up,’ ” she said.
Instead, in 2003, they moved to the Gold Coast, and one day while exploring Tamborine Mountain, Mr Morris came across a cheese factory for sale on Beacon Rd.
“We bought the factory and it started really slow,” she said.
“But we started getting bus tours, basically piggybacking off the Tamborine Mountain Distillery on the same road. People would come to the cheese shop from the distillery and vice versa.”
They bought their milk from local dairy farmers and soon the company was producing 500 litres of cheese a day.
Mrs Morris said the initial challenge was that the factory was set up to make quark.
“We wanted to make soft, blue or hard, and they were only making quark, so we had to revamp,” she said.
Mrs Morris said cheesemaking was a laborious process.
“You have to be very meticulous,” she said.
“We were lucky to source a milk supply locally.”
In 2008, after outgrowing their site on Beacon Rd, they moved to their current premises on Long Rd.
The idea was to bring the cheese factory, and the recently launched Mount Tamborine Brewery, under one roof.
Visitors could watch the beer and cheese being made through a factory of wall-towall glass.
In 2010 the company won two prestigious medals at the Brisbane Cheese Awards for their chevphilly – a hard goats’ cheese.
In recent years, they have started to pull back from the operation and focus on their role as landlords.
In 2014 Fortitude Brewing Company bought the brewing operation and last year Michael Reeve took over the cheese factory.
He produces Witches Chase Cheese Company products under licence and also has his own brands, all of which are sold at the cheese shop.
Mrs Morris said in the future she would love to set up an animal farm and organic vegetable garden on the site.