The tastiest cheese starts with the best quality milk
Golden Hooves cheese is nutritious and tasty because it’s made from the very best quality milk.
Our farmers graze their cows on lush pastures, which means that they produce milk that is rich in natural nutrients, especially milk proteins called casein. The creamy natural goodness of this milk helps guarantee a delicious flavour and helps us produce cheddar cheese like no other – full flavoured with great texture.
It is said that making great cheese is an art form and it certainly takes time – our tasty Golden Hooves cheese takes at least a year to mature, being checked for quality several times along the way.
Of course, starting with the best milk certainly helps us make great cheese, but it takes the skill of our expert cheese graders to pick a potential champion cheese good enough for Golden Hooves. They carefully select and nurture the cheeses – for up to three years in the case of a vintage Cheddar.
Our specialist cheese grader, Jack Eade, explains how he chooses only the very best cheese for Golden Hooves. “Grading cheese uses all our senses. First, I look at the cheese to judge its colour, before smelling it. I then feel it to assess the body and texture to ensure it’s not crumbly or sticky. The final step is to taste it and assess the flavour.”
And Jack should know. He’s been a cheese grader for 20 years and in a typical week he checks up to 700 individual cheeses, tasting a sugar-cube sized piece from each to check that it will make the grade!
