City Cheese wins gold at Artisan Cheese Awards

Northern Ireland’s City Cheese company gained a gold award at the recent Artisan Cheese Awards, in Melton Mowbray, for a new raw milk goat’s cheese.

The artisan business, based at Ballywalter in county Down, launched the goat’s cheese as the latest in a series of cheeses.

Christo Swanepoel, founder and owner of City Cheese, says, “It’s immensely encouraging to win such important recognition within the artisan cheese category for what is a new development for us, our first goat’s cheese. Gold at the first attempt for a new cheese for us is pretty good.

“Making a goat’s cheese is something I had been contemplating following the success of our raw milk gouda-style cheeses. It’s also a raw milk cheese that we source from an Irish goat farm. I am looking forward to feedback from customers over the next few weeks.”

City Cheese was among 115 producers at the awards and cheese festival. 46 golds were awarded by the judges with 55 silvers and 52 bronzes also being handed out.

A total of 24 prizes were handed out which recognised the best cheeses for texture, animal origin, raw milk, type and nationality. Over £10,000 was raised in sponsorship as prize money given directly to the winning cheesemakers.

The 7th Artisan Cheese Fair followed the awards with 69 cheesemakers from the UK and Ireland selling their cheeses directly to several thousand visitors who attended the event.