In the final part of our series with Emilie on Cheese, we have further questions from Olivier, Steven and Niki.
Olivier, retired, living in Serris.
What kind of cheese do English people prefer?
Traditionally, British people love cheddar, and it is in the country the best seller but through the year, people became more and more adventurous, and they are keen to try more and more different cheeses. I will say that they are also big consumers of Brie, goat’s cheese, and blue cheese (Stilton). I have been living in the UK since 2005 and I have seen significant development in the sales of European cheeses.
Do they eat raw milk cheese, or do they prefer pasteurized cheese?
They eat raw milk cheeses, the most popular one is the Comte. We also supply Reblochon, Morbier, Abondance and Roquefort for example which are all raw milk.
Steven, Tanzania, CEO of an NGO
1.Which materials are used to make cheese?
The main ingredients for cheeses are milk, salt, starter culture, rennet or coagulant and sometimes cream.
How is the cheese made?
Each type of cheeses has its own production process but the main steps are, receive the milk on site, adjust the quantity of fat if needed, pasteurised the milk if needed, add some starter cultures and then leave the time to the starter to do their action during the fermentation. You will then add some rennet or coagulant to obtain some curd and get rid of the whey. When the curd has the right consistency, you will do the moulding. Some cheeses can then be pressed. The following step will be the draining and the acidification of the cheese before the salting (dry salting or in brine). The cheese will after this mature before being sometimes cut and packed to be ready to be dispatched.
Does Emilie have a factory, or does she make cheese at home?
I don’t have a factory, but I worked in one in Normandy for 5 years. If I make cheese at home, it is for fun with my children.
In Tanzania cheese is made from milk They are the best ones. I am not a fan of plant-based “cheeses.”
Niki, teacher of English, Baku, Azerbaijan
I would like to ask Emilie if they make special cheese for different age groups.
We don’t make cheeses for different age groups but when presenting some cheeses to customers, we can select specific ones depending on the consumers. By doing this, we can make sure that our customers have in their range cheeses which will please children as well as adults, people who know nothing about cheeses or experts or even people who think that they don’t like cheeses.
My second question is, how do they maintain and preserve the better taste of cheese in their products?
To ensure the best quality and taste in our products, we only work with family companies where cheesemakers are driven by their love and passion for the products and the respect of traditional methods. Lots of those companies are also cooperative which means that the milk farmers got shares so everybody is working in partnership to ensure that they achieve the best product quality possible.
Do they have cheese that is ordered by their customers?
The way we work is to organise the commercial contact between the cheese factories and UK customers. We don’t do online shopping ourselves, but we make sure that everything is going well for the products to arrive in the UK.