The Farmers Mart Apr-May 2020 - Issue 68 | Page 36

36 HEADINGLEY FARMERS’ MARKET MILK AND CHEESE UPDATE To all our lovely customers who are struggling to get hold of our produce we are now selling milk, cheese and butter through our online shop and direct from the farm gate until restrictions are lifted. If you would like to collect from the farm please phone [phone] and we will take the order and payment from you prior to collection. For online orders please go to the shop https://lincolnshirepoachercheese.com/shop/ NHS staff who email us a valid Blue Light Card photo at [email protected] will receive additional piece of cheese with their order as a small token of our appreciation for their extraordinary work. Keep Safe Tim & Simon Behind any successful cheese obviously, it’s got to be the milk first. Since the extra land was sold, they have had a 250 strong herd of Pedigree Holstein Friesians, along with a few Ayrshires. Tim and Simon are absolutely committed to their animals. These must be some of the most pampered dairy cows in the UK. The farm has 780 acres, half of which is lush pasture for grazing and the other half arable purely to support the herd, where they grow maize, wheat, barley, oats, beans and feed beets - a particular favour- ite with the cows, the sweetness is like a bar of Dairy Milk to us. It doesn’t stop there, they are also given ground seaweed powder and Himalayan rock salt, something else they love to lick, these both supplement vital minerals. The herd is also not milked to commercial dairy levels where cows are yielding up to 14,000 litres each, but here each cow averaged between 8 and 9000 litres a year. Simon and Tim are keen that their cows have a long and productive life on the farm. Hygiene is of the utmost importance across the board, from the cattle sheds to the modern milking parlour. Now having produced cheese for 28 years, everyone, including Tim, has learnt so much about the art of cheese-making and how the smallest thing can affect taste. Grass quality, soils, even down to tweaks in production methods such as how you cut the curds. One thing I didn’t realise, is that with tasty cheeses such as Poacher - they are unique and can’t be replicated because so many factors are unique to a particular farm, its environment, production process and flavouring etc. They are always experimenting with tweaks to the process and developing flavours. As well as the cheese they produce traditional butter made in the classic way from the whey and sell a small amount of the milk flavours. Lincolnshire Poacher is a slower maturing cheese, as they use less starter culture. The cheese can be sold at anything from 17 months to 24. Just like a good wine, cheese does peak. The ageing and storage process are not dissimilar to that of wine, all cheeses need turning for them to dry evenly and achieve an even moisture, fat and protein distribution throughout the cheese. It also keeps the shape of the cheese uniform. Lincolnshire Poacher turn new cheeses once a week ‘ Lincolnshire Poacher Cheese is matured typically for 18 months to two years and sometimes up to three years ’ produced on the farm. Again, this is traditional unpasteurised milk and tastes amazing! On their markets stall they do carry other special varieties of cheese and a range of gift hampers. Tim and Simon love both the learning and the challenges of business development Lincolnshire Poacher Cheese is matured typically for 18 months to two years and some- times up to three years which is a change from the early days when it was up to 9 months. As Tim said to me, they have learnt a lot across the years. Better cheeses take longer to mature and develop the stronger and older ones once a month. Considering they have around 14,500 cheeses at any one time this a mammoth task, requiring considerable strength to turn so many every day. They have one man who is a positive expert - “Reash” as he prefers to be known, is in his 60’s and still going strong. He has it down to an art, with very little damage or wastage at all. However, as production increases and he isn’t getting any younger there needs to be a long-term plan. After a huge capital invest- ment, shortly they will be installing a state-of-the-art robot from Switzerland that will do