St Andrew’s Cheddar

For over 50 years Jane Stewart and her partner Robert have been farming in Fife.  In 2007 they decided to make cheese with the high-quality unpasteurised milk given by their home-bred herd of Holstein-Friesian cows, so they created the St Andrew’s Farmhouse Cheese Company.  Jane crafted a recipe to make a crumbly, lactic, fresh cheese, using cheese-making techniques of the north of England (Cheshire and Wensleydale for example).  After a cheese-making course at Reading University, Jane carried out a fact-finding trip in the south-west of England and Wales (with the renowned expert Leon Downey).  Returning to the farm, she and Robert created ‘Anster’ cheese, named after the nickname for the fishing village of Anstruther.

But when selling at local farmers’ markets she found she struggled to get people to approach her stall as she only had one product.  Cheddar-making uses the same small-scale equipment and moulds, so Jane set about developing a second cheese.  Using techniques traditional to the south of England (original bacteria ferments to make the cheese, ‘cheddaring’, making by hand, and cloth-binding) Jane has created a Cheddar to rival the best of the West Country.  Aged for 14 months, it retains the Scottish Cheddar style: powerful, strong and tangy – a real sharp complex Cheddar.