The Draw of Raw
Sam Brice interviews Mike Thomson from Mike's Fancy Cheese.
Many of the world’s best-loved cheeses are made using raw milk, and despite ongoing pressure to pasteurise from government and food safety bodies, the UK is still home to many sensational raw milk cheeses - both new and old.
In Northern Ireland though, raw milk cheese disappeared altogether, taking with it the nuanced flavours and aromas that such diverse bacteria can bestow on our cheeses. Enter Mike Thompson. 11 years ago, Mike decided to create a new tradition of raw milk cheesemaking in Northern Ireland, and Mike’s Fancy Cheese was born.
While making the much celebrated Young Buck for over a decade now, Mike and his team also work collaboratively with cheesemakers across Ireland, selling a wide variety of artisan beauties via their shop in central Belfast, as well as online.
We caught up with Mike to find out more about his one man raw milk revolution.
WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO START MAKING RAW MILK CHEESE?
I loved the simplicity of a raw milk cheese. We work with a farmer who loves dairy farming and we pay a good price for it. That simplicity of picking the milk up, moving it 5 miles to our manufacturing site, turning it into cheese, and then having a shop 8 miles away where we bring and sell is such a lovely simple food chain! Also a pasteuriser is expensive in cost or time, so we just put the time into securing a great milk supply!
WHAT MAKES NORTHERN IRELAND'S CHEESE SPECIAL?
There aren’t a lot of us up here, so it’s difficult to say! We produce the cheese in Newtownards, which is just outside Belfast where I live. I’m a city boy with no farming experience! It’s at the top of Strangford Lough and the surrounding areas are quite hilly, leading down to the lough with the dairy farms speckled across the top of the hills. Good drainage and lush grasses means the cows are out for as much as the year as possible.
TELL US MORE ABOUT YOUR CHEESE
Young Buck is a raw milk blue. It’s aged for 3 months. When we were deciding what cheese to make, we asked around and a raw milk blue seemed to be what a lot of people were looking for. And that fit the bill for the style of cheese we could make. I was 27 and we used crowdfunding to get started, so we had to make a cheese that was no longer than 3 months aged, due to the cost. Also we didn’t want to make a soft fresh cheese, as our initial market was the rest of UK and Ireland, as there wasn’t much of a local market at that time - we had to create that over time. We usually make 4 times a week in a 1000 litre vat.
WHAT IS THE IRISH RAW MILK CHEESE PRESIDIA?
Unlike many Presidia that concentrate on one particular product with distinctive properties from a specific geographical area, this project covers many different types of cheeses from across Ireland. The Presidium is made up of 10 artisan dairies that work with their own distinctive style and techniques, but share a common commitment to producing a safe, high-quality product using raw milk from their own cows or goats, or milk from nearby herds. It was established in 2005 at a time when lots of cheesemakers were being discouraged from making raw milk cheese.
WHERE CAN WE FIND YOUR CHEESE ACROSS THE UK?
We’re lucky to supply a lot of great cheese shops in the UK. Andy at The Courtyard Dairy was the first person to buy Young Buck when we started 11 years ago! Also Perry at Rennet & Rind has been a long-time supporter and we feature in many of Mathew Carver’s cheese projects, with Young Buck raclette on the menu at The Cheese Bar pretty much from day 1! Through the power of Instagram we are also able to have relationships with Oli and the guys at The Bristol Cheesemonger without even having met! The great thing about the small scale cheese world is we all have the same aim – to make great tasty cheese and sell them to people who love to sell cheese!
Visit: mfcheese.com