Cheesemaker needs milk supply

A MILK drought in Co Kerry has threatened the future of an award-winning cheesemaker.

Maja Binder says nervousness about milk quota rules has left farmers unwilling to supply milk to her Dingle Peninsula cheese company.

Based in Castlegregory, she has been making raw milk cheeses for more than a decade, from a neighbouring farmer’s Friesian and Kerry cows. Her cheeses won the overall prize in the National Food Awards (Blás na hEireann) in 2008, and a Guild of Irish Food Writers Ballygowan Award in 2001. They are sold nationwide and exported.