Cheesemaker needs milk supply
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.
She requires 15,000 litres of cows’ milk from April to October, and cannot find a local supplier, despite paying more than the Kerry Co-op milk price. The milk must be located within half an hour’s transport distance of her cheesemaking base at Kilcummin Beg, Castlegregory.
She believes dairy farmers fear their milk quotas will be reduced if their delivery to the co-op falls below a certain level, and farmers are also discouraged by the extra paperwork and rules and regulations involved in trading milk outside the usual channels.
She can be contacted at 066-7139028 or 087-6255788 by any local farmer interested in supplying milk for cheesemaking.
