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.

Evansdale Cheese, recognizing that cheeses thrive on care and consideration, look after and mature their cheeses so that you can enjoy them at their best.

Evansdale Cheese Factory RD1 Waikouaiti New Zealand
Telephone ++64 3 4658101. Facsimile: ++64 3 4658101. Email: info@evansdalecheese.co.nz