How do you start up a business making blue cheese? We take it for granted we can pretty much buy some blue cheese anywhere these days. It’s not as easy as it seems setting up a business but a cheesemaking business is very daring. Here is a story about Mike Thomson maker of Young Buck and how he came to set up his cheese making business.
Mike had been working in a deli in Belfast for a while and was often asked “do you have any local cheese” to which Mike would have to offer an Irish or English cheese. He decided to make Northern Ireland’s 1st raw milk blue cheese! Before we continue with the story, I should probably explain what I mean by raw milk. This is unpasteurised milk, see that bottle of milk in your fridge? It’s been pasteurised heated to a temperature making sure there is no bacteria living in it. Traditionally raw milk was used to make cheese, but you will find in most supermarkets it’s made with pasteurised milk. Cheesemongers like myself love selling unpasteurised or raw milk cheese. It’s often stronger, more pungent and hosts lots of flavour and enzymes (easier to digest). Back to Mike.
How much was Mike going to need to build his cheese dreams? About £80,000 should do it. Yes this is exactly why we don’t have lots of cheese makers it’s serious money. Mike used the power or the internet to do a crowd funding platform. Offering up profits in his business to investors which could be anyone with a few bob to spare. Making videos explaining who he was and what he wanted to achieve to get the word out in hope people would back him. In this time Mike had graduated from the School of Artisan food in Nottinghamshire and had been working for leading artisan cheesemakers in the UK gaining experience and perfecting his own cheese Young Buck. He did it! Now it’s here for us all to enjoy and it’s exceptionally good cheese.
It’s great to hear a story of such determination and passion to produce an artisan cheese. We often gobble food up without ever thinking about HOW IT CAME TO BE! I know it’s deep!
Please pop in to The Little Cheesemonger in Rhuddlan to sample Mike’s cheese – Young Buck.
