Where to buy cheese-making equipment in the UK

25th October 2018

The rapid growth of farmhouse and small-scale artisan cheese-making in the UK has seen a matching growth of suppliers of cheese-making equipment, starter cultures, moulds and bacteria, keen to supply the UK market. Listed below are some of the best places to buy cheese-making equipment and cultures (in no particular order), either for home-scale size (listed first) or artisan/farmhouse size (listed later).

If you are a farmer and are thinking about diversifying into cheese-making, please do contact The Courtyard Dairy as early as possible – we’d love to offer our assistance. We are really keen to assist in helping new farmhouse cheese-makers set up and succeed in the challenging business of cheese-making.
Here are some examples of successful farms we’ve already helped: Yoredale, Long Swale, Whin Yeats, Stonebeck (Low Riggs), Lowfields.

Commercial Cheese Making Equipment

Small-scale cheese-making equipment

Moorlands Cheesemakers (cheesemaking.co.uk)
The Cheese Making Shop (cheesemakingshop.co.uk)
Goat Nutrition (gnltd.co.uk)
Homestead Farm Supplies (homesteadfarmsupplies.co.uk)
Cheese Yogurt Making (cheese-yogurt-making.com)

Larger (farm/artisan-scale) cheese equipment suppliers

Orchard Valley Dairy Supplies (https://www.ovdairysupplies.co.uk/) – starter bacteria and cheese maturing cultures, e.g. brie/blue/washed rind/geotricium
Barbers Farmhouse Cheesemakers (barbers.co.uk/pages/starter-culture) – starter bacteria (barbers.co.uk/pages/starter-culture)
Westcombe Dairy (westcombedairy.com) – starter bacteria and cheese maturing cultures
Jongia UK – (jongiauk.com) OR JKM Foods (jkm-foods.com) – moulds, presses, cheese-making vats, curd knives and starter bacteria
Brytec (brytecltd.co.uk), Barvick Engineering (barvick.net), Thwaites (Penrith), Invicta (Pickering) OR MCE Engineering (mcelimited.co.uk), – cheese moulds, vats, curd knives, draining tables, etc. (stainless steel fabricators)
Tanfield Engineering (https://www.tanfieldengineering.com) – cheese moulds, vats, curd knives, draining tables, etc. (stainless steel fabricators)
Cremfields (cremfields.co.uk) – cheese moulds, vats, curd knives, draining tables, etc. (stainless steel fabricators)
Bonningtons, Alpma GB (alpma.co.uk), Syspal (syspal.com) OR Plevnik (plevnik.si/en/) – cheese moulds and general equipment
Colsan (colsan.com) – cheese moulds and general equipment
Scientific and Chemical Supplies (scichem.com) OR ATP Instrumentation (atp-instrumentation.co.uk) – recording equipment, TA meters
Read Desco (readdesco.com) – cheese moulds and general equipment
Sanderson Consulting (IFT Cheesemaking Equipment) (sanderson-consulting.co.uk) – cheese moulds and general equipment
Synrein (synrein.co.uk), Lees Newsome (leesnewsome.co.uk), Precision Cut Textiles (precisioncut.org.uk) OR A & I Holmes & Co (aiholmes.co.uk) – cheese cloth
Groupe La Croix (www.groupe-lacroix.com), A La Carte Packaging Solutions (alacartepackaging.com), Bartec, www.tkvk.co.uk – packaging solutions
For refrigeration advice for larger projects, Alan Hayes at Capital Refrigeration Services (capitalref.com) is invaluable.
Pasteurisers: harrytravis.co.uk or Unison

You can also buy great cheese-making equipment direct from abroad

France: Coquard (coquard.fr/uk/index.htm), Elimeca (elimeca.fr), Avedemil (avedemil.com/, Standa (standa-fr.com), France Processing (franceprocess.fr) OR Alliance Elevage (alliance-elevage-export.com/en) – starter bacteria, cheese cultures and all equipment needs (moulds, vat, ladles, etc.), morelle-machard.fr, Packaging: .groupe-lacroix
Switzerland: Bichsel (https://www.bichsel-ag.ch) starter bacteria, cheese cultures and all equipment needs (moulds, vat, ladles, etc.)
Holland: ANTE BV (antebv.nl/en/), Gebr. Rademaker (no web page but send catalogue request to [email protected]) OR C. van’t Riet (dairy-equipment.com) – starter bacteria and all equipment needs – moulds, vats, etc.

Second hand equipment is sometimes advertised through The Specialist Cheese-makers Association (specialistcheesemakers.co.uk).

(NB If your company supplies products to the dairy industry and you are not mentioned above, please let us know.)

Natural cheese-making and making your own lactic acid ‘starter culture’: is it the panacea of farmhouse cheese-making?

30th June 2018

What is natural cheese-making? Natural cheese-making essentially involves cheese-makers making their own starter cultures rather than buying-in commercial starter cultures to make cheese. But it is difficult to do, and fraught with potential issues. What is a starter culture? Making cheese involves acidifying the lactose sugar within milk, turning it into lactic acid. This key step in cheese-making helps set the milk into curd, assists in giving the cheese its flavour, and makes the cheese long-lasting and safe to eat. This process needs bacteria, specifically ‘lactic acid bacteria’. Nearly all cheese makers within the UK buy these bacteria in. Much like bakers buy yeast to make bread, cheese-makers buy bacteria to make cheese. They add it to the milk at the beginning of the cheese-making process so it helps kick-start the process. The lactic acid bacteria are grown by scientists in laboratories, and are sold in sachets, called ‘starter culture’, and are well-tried and tested. The milk will then acidify as it’s supposed to and this will help to produce consistent cheese results. The availability of this ‘off-the-shelf starter culture’ has helped improved cheese consistency and flavour in many ways. These sachets are, however, ‘some-one else’s’ bacteria; bacteria not perhaps…