HOW BRITISH CHEESE IS RISING TO THE CHALLENGE
VIRTUAL CHEESE TASTINGS
Mike’s Fancy Cheese in Belfast, which makes the raw-milk blue Young Buck, is hosting weekly virtual cheese and beer tastings through the video conferencing site Zoom. It delivers tasting packs across the city and customers then tune into the event, hosted by owner Mike Thomson, brewers and guest cheesemakers. “We’re back making once a week now because of deliveries and the tastings,” says Thompson. mikes-fancy-cheese. myshopify.com
SELFISOLATION SURVIVAL KITS
The Cheese Bar has temporarily closed its London restaurants, including the world’s first cheese conveyor belt, but continues to fly the flag for artisan British cheese with deliveries across the capital. Its Self-Isolation Survival Kit, containing a full cheeseboard, charcuterie, bread, wine and other treats, is a best seller. contactless delivery service called Sheffield Made. The venture delivers boxes of fruit and veg, bread, milk and locally made foods such as ice cream, sausages, and Williamson’s own soft cheese to addresses across the city. sheffieldmade.co.uk
DRIVETHROUGH FARM SHOP
The Gog Farm Shop in Cambridge, well known for its cheese counter, has set up a drivethrough system. Customers park in an allotted space, give their order to staff who observe social distancing, and cheese is placed in the boot for them. Contactless card payment is made with a 6ft pole, sterilised after each use. thegog.com
POST-CRISIS HARD CHEESE
Farm-based FW Read & Sons, best known for its Lincolnshire Poacher, has been left with a surfeit of milk. In response, it has developed a new hard cheese which can be kept for up to three years. It has a drier, parmesanlike texture. “I hope things will be very different by the time it’s matured and there will be a market for it,” says co-owner Tim Jones. lincolnshirepoacher cheese.com able to feed the nation is only going to become more important.
To highlight these issues, the SCA has joined forces with the Academy of Cheese to put their weight behind the British Cheese Weekender – an online festival taking place over the bank holiday weekend, May 8-10, featuring free, live-streamed talks, tastings, cookery demos and farm tours (full disclosure: I helped to found the event after hearing just how badly cheesemakers were being affected).
Individual businesses have also been quick to embrace online technology. At Bath Soft Cheese in Kelston, owner Hugh Padfield saw sales fall 50 per cent overnight when the lockdown was introduced, but has pivoted his business to sell more through his website with special deals and selection boxes. He has also set up a local veg box delivery scheme with a nearby grocery store and butcher using the village website. “Local businesses are very flexible and quick to adapt,” he says. “In the past you had to be a massive corporate to afford the right IT systems and tech. Whereas today, anyone can use online tools like Facebook and online payment platforms, which are cheap and easy to use.”
Online selling was never a big focus for Bath Soft Cheese, but Padfield says he is now keen to expand it further after a huge surge in orders from people who want to support small producers and are struggling to get food through supermarkets. “The whole food ecosystem has been shaken up,” he says. “The way it’s potentially settling down makes it easier for us all to do a lot more. Everyone is talking about how people are going to be working from home more when the crisis is over. If that’s the case, the ability to deliver to people improves enormously. This crisis is changing the way we all think about shopping.”
Selina Cairns, a Lanarkshire farmer and cheesemaker, has also got to grips with new technology, building her own website with an online shop for her company Errington Cheese in just a few days. “It’s not perfect – there are
‘It’s become a call to arms: if you’re buying cheese, buy British, and buy it from a specialist’
a few spelling mistakes – and we’re getting used to having to cut up lots of 200g wedges to be sent out by courier, but it’s something,” she says. Erringtoncheese.com gets around 100 orders a week, which equates to 100kg of cheese, well under half what Errington would expect to sell normally, but it keeps stock moving: vital as the milk from the farm’s 260 sheep and 100 goats is in full flow.
Cairns has also teamed up with other local initiatives, including the NeighbourFood online farmers’ market in Peebles and a veg box delivery scheme called Root to Market recently set up by Fhior restaurant in Edinburgh to provide a lifeline to small restaurant suppliers. “I’m keeping my ears open,” she says. “These new schemes seem much more sustainable to me in the long run. Once you’ve got something that works and people have changed buying habits, hopefully they will think it’s worth staying with it.”
It’s a hope echoed by Mead, who says that if small cheesemakers can get through the worst of the crisis and keep these new local networks going, it may help in the long term. “We’re seeing a shift in shopping behaviour as people who used to buy everything through the supermarket are now using farm shops, cheesemongers and online deliveries more,” she says. “It could become a mainstay of people’s regular shopping patterns – not just a treat or an add-on.”
At Caws Cenarth, Adams cleared his mountain of cheese thanks to public support, but at the time of writing made the difficult decision to furlough staff and temporarily close production as he works out what to do next. He argues that the crisis has highlighted major problems with British food, which is overly reliant on supermarkets, imported food and huge industrial food producers. For the country’s food sector to become more self-sufficient and resilient, new ways of making and selling food need to be supported, and supermarkets also need to do their bit, he says. “The big retailers should show a bit more loyalty and source more locally,” he says. “We’ve got French cheese being sold dirt cheap, while farmers near me are having to put milk into slurry pits. That’s not right. We’ve got too used to cheap food. If there’s ever a good time to support and buy British cheeses, it’s now.”
For details on the British Cheese Weekender, visit academyofcheese. org/british-cheese-weekender