26 April 2012

Buying WA cheese

I love cheese and eat more of it than my cholesterol count says I should. However, living in Western Australia, almost all our well-known cheese brands are produced in the east - mostly in Victoria. Our most recent sustainable action was to commit to buying only West Australian made cheese.


My biggest concern was that WA-made ordinary 1kg blocks would be either completely unavailable, or unaffordable. I am pleased to have so far found two 1kg block lines: Harvey Fresh, and Tuart Dairy. Both were the cheapest brand available the week I bought them on special (around $8.99 I think). Tuart Dairy is a brand from Cape Naturaliste Dairy Company, of Ludlow & Applecross, for which I can't find a website.

Other WA brands that we have purchased are:

Old Cheddar Cheese Company (Ludlow, no website, contact ) - for flavoured cheddars/ cheeseboard-style specialties
Mundella (Mundijong) - for feta, ricotta and cottage cheese
Cambray Sheep Cheese (Nannup) - for OH SO GOOD gourmet lines. There is no 'sheepy' taste. 
Various southwest lines sold by the Teezy Cheese Stall at Manning Farmers Markets, including Organic from Cowaramup and Gracetown. Teezy Cheese have no website, but are at Manning and Midland Farmers Markets. They are a group of young people based in Morley and do free delivery within a 15km radius. Contact elena@toltrip.com.au or 0422 647 335

I needed to visit a bigger IGA than our local one and read many many cheese labels to find a WA feta, although we also buy gourmet WA feta from the farmers' market. Harder again was finding a WA ricotta or cottage cheese - which is particularly important as the cholesterol issue actually does need some attention and these are lower cholesterol options for cheese. Thankfully, after a bit of searching, I found a few options.

WA cheeses we are yet to try include:
Borello (Oakford, no website, contact borellocheese@bigpond.com.au)
Rose Valley (Wungong, no website, contact 9399 2238)
These are the two WA brands our local continental deli stocks - I had to ask them of course to establish this. We try to support this deli when we can, as it is run by a group of young women who only started operating it about two years ago. Most of their cheese is imported from overseas or the east, though.
Lewana Cottages (Balingup)
Margaret River Organic Creameries (Wagerup) - the only fully certified organic dairy company I have located in my WA cheese search (so far)
Harvey Cheese (Harvey) - a smaller independent company, separate to Harvey Fresh. Their cheeses are often branded as HaVe. They also run regular cheese-making workshops open to all.
Casa Dairy (Canningvale) - another possible source of Ricotta and Feta

Cheese brands now off the menu as they are not from WA include: Bulla (Vic), Bega (NSW & Vic), Kraft (Vic), Fonterra (inc. Bega, Brownes, Mainland, Nestle - various Vic/NSW/Tas) Murray-Goulburn Coop (inc. Liddels, Cobram, Devondale - Vic), Lemnos (Vic), National Foods -  now part of Lion (inc Australian Gold, Cracker Barrel, King Island, Masters, Mersey Valley, Mil Lel, Tasmanian Heritage - various Vic/NSW/Tas), Warrnambool Cheese & Butter Factory (inc Sungold - Vic). Many home brand or store brand (eg Coles, Woolworths) cheese lines are reportedly imported from overseas. Watsonia, formerly a West Australian brand, moved production to Victoria at the end of 2010.

Its a tricky area, because in researching info for this blog I came across a Federal Court ruling against Harvey Fresh in 2009, initiated by the ACCC, for making Harvey Fresh block cheese look local when in fact it was being made in Victoria. They have increased their WA production since then, and their packaging still looks like its a WA brand, so I have emailed to ask them whether they have changed their practice since this ruling to produce their block cheeses in WA. So far they have not responded to my enquiry, so it will be Tuart Dairy for us until I can clarify the issue.

If I haven't mentioned the brand you like try this website for a list of Australian dairy companies and their products. If its imported from overseas the label should identify this. For smaller brands, try this site, which includes only five of the WA cheese companies - so clearly is not comprehensive in its coverage. For a list of WA food companies for a range of food products try the Buy West Eat Best website - although, again, not comprehensive especially for smaller traders.

Buying WA is not quite buying 'local', but I'm not ready (yet?) to limit my cheese to the few near the metro area - Mundella, Rose Valley, Casa and Borello. In other parts of the world Denmark (400km away - a south coast town, not the country in Europe) may not be considered 'local' but here in Perth food has either crossed the arid lands to the north (coming from Carnarvon or Ord River, generally) or the east (connecting the rest of Australia), or it hasn't. If it hasn't, its from the southwest of our State, reaching up to about 450km from Perth. If its not from the southwest, there is no mid-distance (except Carnarvon fruit & veg, which comes around 900km). From the east or the Ord River food has come over 2000km at least, probably more likely over 3000km - yes, Ord River is in WA, but it is around 3200km from Perth!

Initial Time: Reading cheese labels in stores took probably half an hour; talking to my local deli staff about ten minutes; searching the web for WA cheese producers and to check where bigger brands are produced (as their packaging lists their head office, not necessarily where the cheese came from) about two hours. But now that I have done that you don't need to! So (if you live in southwest WA) your initial time commitment could be much smaller.

Initial Cost: zero

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Generally I have found comparable priced WA options for most cheese I buy. Obviously gourmet Cambrey Sheep Cheese costs more than bulk-line supermarket items, but that would apply whether I bought Victorian gourmet cheeses (such as the extremely fine Timboon or Jindi cheese we have purchased in the past) or gourmet WA cheese. Mundella feta is a regular supermarket line that is competitively priced with other feta brands such as Lemnos, and its Ricotta and Cottage Cheese is on par with brands such as Bulla. The biggest test is whether I can avoid the weeks that Watsonia or Devondale 1kg block cheese is selling for $8 and hold out until Tuart Dairy is on special. Then I stock up! I'm also a sucker for marked-down specialty cheeses, and have had to steel myself several times not to purchase a Chrystal Fresh cheese platter. Also, some of the WA lines are not stocked at our small local IGA, so unless I can convince them to order these lines (which I will try to do - smaller stores are more likely to respond to such customer requests) buying WA will mean occasional trips across to a bigger IGA and, for Mundella Ricotta, to Woolworths (shudder). 

The buy-WA commitment does mean that one or two favourite imported gourmet lines are off the menu, such as Jindi blue or Dutch Leden. Gracetown Blue (from Teezy Cheese Stall) is a fine alternative blue; I haven't yet found a local line that has caraway seed in it like Dutch Leden. Also, the cheap-end camemberts and bries (eg Australian Gold) are not made in WA, so buying WA means having to go the gourmet approach for soft cheeses. That hasn't hit home yet because I am not supposed to be eating soft cheeses while pregnant!

After beginning to write this blog I realised that we also eat cheap grated parmesan - I had somehow forgotten this was also cheese when I was making our WA commitment. So far I have only managed to find a WA-made romano, and a relatively expensive one at that (from Teezy Cheese), to replace cheap parmesan, which is definitely not from WA, although the packaging is vague about where it is actually produced. This may require a slight change in eating habits as we can't afford to eat expensive parmesan/ romano at the rate we consume the cheap stuff!

Impact: A 2007 report assessing food miles for a regular shopping basket in Melbourne estimated cheese there generated about 152g carbon dioxide per kilo. Given that most Australian cheese is produced in Victoria, and this report estimated cheese travelled about 688km before reaching the consumer, I would estimate most Australian cheese not produced in WA travels about 4000km on its way to my local supermarket shelf. Using the same figures as the 2007 report, this means 1kg of eastern states cheese generates around 882g of carbon dioxide. However, these figures do not take into account that the trucks are refrigerated, so the actual amount would be higher. I think its fair to say cheese roughly generates its weight in carbon dioxide when transported to WA from Victoria. 

If I estimate WA cheese to have travelled between 100 and 500km to reach me, the equivalent carbon dioxide generation is between 22 and 110g per kilo of cheese. At a guess we eat about 2kg of cheese a month (including feta, gourmet items, block cheese, ricotta...). If all bought from the east that would be 24kg of carbon dioxide generated per year. If all bought from WA that would be between 0.5 and 2.6kg of carbon dioxide per year.

There are also the positive benefits of supporting local industry, and supporting smaller businesses.

It must be acknowledged, however, that no matter where it takes place the production and distribution of dairy products is energy intensive. Many sources estimate that producing 1kg of cheese generates around 10kg of greenhouse gas (not just carbon dioxide, also the more greenhouse-potent methane, a large portion of which cows are unhappily responsible for). So our household's 2kg per month of cheese may be causing 241 instead of 264kg of greenhouse gas per year if purchased locally. Some thoughts on ways to reduce the overall footprint of food consumed are here. Once the calcium requirements of pregnancy and breastfeeding are behind me, we will need to seriously consider reducing our cheese consumption overall. For now, buying only WA cheese is the small step I have been able to commit to.

20 comments:

  1. Thanks for the tip about Watsonia (GWF I think) shifting production.

    We've found a cheese with just about no labelling, in a 1kg (sometimes 500g) fat cylinder in either yellow or black wax. It often says something like "produced in Capel/Busselton for Farmer Jacks" - and yes, we found it at our local Farmer Jacks. Often cheaper than the big brand cheddars, it is yummy and matured and a bit crumbly - not so good for grating.

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  2. a very good idea clare thanks for the information

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  3. Today I discovered "Tuart Dairy" cheese by the Cape Naturaliste Dairy Co - its quite magnificent.... a really gorgeous cheddar..

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  4. Just found local Camembert/Bree from "The Cheese Shed' no web site but a mobile # 0414 487 140 retailing @ $19.99/k

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  5. Looking for a contact number or email, web site for Tuart Dairy, my daughter only eats this brand and its changed to a horrid crumbly consistency. Actually I find it very dry now. Rang spud shed where I brought it but they wouldn't give me a ph number or contact details, this makes me a tad suspicious as to where to where it originates from.

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    1. I have also been frustrated at trying to find a contact for Cape Naturaliste Dairy Company (makers of Tuart Dairy, Brunswick Dairy and Cape Naturaliste) - they do not appear to be on the web or in the phone directory. If you do find them please let me know! If I find them in future I will put a contact number here. Their postal address is PO Box 555 Applecoss WA 6953 or 31 Glendon Rd Ludlow WA 6280.

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  6. My biggest killer is table salt unfortunetly for me this salt is in all products including cheeses, yougurts, etc etc....it's in every thing and it is what causes high blood pressure. I only use celtic sea salt which has nutrients the body needs. table salt and no salt both do damage to you. So does anyone know of products that have sea salt or no salt at all. please let me know....

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  7. clare there is no cheddar made in western Australia it all comes from a N.Z.company called fontera sorry to disappointed you

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    1. Hi Robert, I have had trouble verifying the source of our cheddar (Brunswick/ Cape Naturaliste/ Tuart Dairy - all the same company it seems). I suspect you may be right but I would like to have it confirmed. Can you point me to anything that demonstrates Fonterra is doing block cheese for 'wa' brands?

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  8. I'm also a cheese lover ... and I think Robert is incorrect, because it says Made in Australia, though it also says 'packed for Cape Naturaliste Dairy Co ... so who knows, anyway I'm also a fan of quality, and this used to be awesome cheese, now it tastes like same bog standard homebred stuff that fills the shelves of Coles and Woolies ... which means now I have to hunt around for Mainland Tasty (from NZ) which used to be common, until the supermarkets decided to adopt the Soviet style of production ...

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    1. Fonterra is NZ owned but definitely produces in Australia also. I'm just not sure if the 'WA' brands are a branch of Fonterra or not. In terms of quality - it seems to vary. Sometimes the cheddar is more of a crumbly vintage and other times (same packaging) more of a smooth mild block - but I have had both within the last year.

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  9. Hi, these are the details I found when I searched the address on the tuart packaging. Seems like it could be legit wa cheese, but seems strange that they keep the brand such a secret!

    The Old Cheddar Cheese Company Pty Ltd
    Cheese & Cheese Products
    31 Glendon Rd, Ludlow, WA 6280
    08 9753 2425

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    1. Its not actually made in WA from WA dairy farmers milk. Is transported from the east and wrapped here I am led to believe. People buy it thinking they are supporting WA Dairy farmers but this is not the case

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    2. I believe your correct, Harvey Fresh use the Weasel words "made from local and imported ingredients" and "Packed for Harvey Fresh". On the WA Ag Dept Eat Fresh Site , Harvey Fresh list a number of products (juice,milk etc)as being WA, but not cheese. Farmer Jacks in house brand is much the same.

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  10. www.buywesteatbest.org.au/buy-west-eat-best/dairy

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  11. When I worked as a subcontractor at Harvey Fresh in 2014 I reported to the floor manager, who was a qualified cheesemaker, and personally witnessed freshly made cheese being wire cut and packaged. I can't say its all locally made, but at least some of it was then.

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    1. Thanks for that insider info. My follow-up post to this one http://smallstepsforsustainability.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/cheese-update.html noted that some Harvey Fresh lines were WA-produced

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  12. Last year I followed up the Old Cheddar Cheese Company to ask about WA-made block cheese lines, thanks to the comment from Blythe giving a phone number. The man who called me back said they had been making 1kg block cheese in some sort of relationship with the Brownes factory at Brunswick. Something about the seconds-milk from that factory making cheese production viable. Apparently 1kg block cheddar is only viable as a by-product of other (more lucrative) production. Brownes closed that factory (I think in 2015, possibly not fully until 2016). Old Cheddar was anticipating that it may need to import milk and/or block cheese to continue production of its less gourmet cheese lines, which include Tuart Dairy and a few other brands. I don't know what ended up happening. The man I spoke with sounded genuinely committed to supporting WA dairy farmers and keeping things local as much as possible, so I am happy to continue supporting the business despite not being 100% sure the cheese is locally produced 100% of the time.

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  13. Brunswick cheese is my favourite line of cheeses and I regularly buy Cheddar, Parmesan, Mozzarella and their Garlic and Chives cheese but just lately they always seem to be out of stock of the garlic and chives or the mozarella at my local Spud Shed :(

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  14. Brunswick / Tuart Dairy / Cape Naturaliste are now selling New Zealand cheese under the same packaging as their previous offering. Thank goodness for country or origin labeling.

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