Dairy to turn the air blue across the Golden Vale

ONE of the country’s most distinctive tastes is set to be enjoyed by an even wider audience thanks to the launch of a new €6 million cheesemaking dairy.

Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney yesterday opened the facility at the headquarters of Cashel Blue and Crozier Blue cheeses, in the heart of the Golden Vale. The dairy, outside Fethard in Co Tipperary, is the largest farmhouse cheesemaking operation in Ireland and is just a stone’s throw from where Cashel Blue was first made in 1982 by husband-and-wife team Louis and Jane Grubb.

The €6m investment will allow the Grubb family to double production at the site at Beechmount Farm, which currently employs 25 local people and produces 250,000 tonnes of cheese every year, one of the biggest in Britain and Ireland.

More than 50% of the award-winning cheese is exported, mostly to Britain and the US, while there is also interest in the Cashel Blue brand in continental Europe.

Speaking at yesterday evening’s opening, Mr Coveney said Cashel Blue has established “a distinctive identity” among consumers.

“It is impressive to see a family enterprise taking in high-quality milk from family farms and making a unique product for marketing at home and away,” Mr Coveney said.

The project was supported with funding from the Department of Agriculture under the Dairy Investment Fund.

“Investment in this state-of-the-art dairy will enable the Grubb family to introduce Cashel Blue and its story to more customers,” the minister said. “I hope that many of these, in turn, will be tempted to visit the country which produces such fine cheese.”

A heritage architect was employed to design the new dairy, choosing a split-level design so it would fit into the site, just two fields from the previous dairy.

The family also invested €750,000 in environmental measures across the farm and cheese dairy, including many storage facilities, reed beds and a proprietary water treatment plan, Mr Grubb said.

“We are proud to produce an internationally recognised speciality cheese.”

In 1982, Jane Grubb cut the first Cashel Blue curds in her mother-in-law’s copper-preserving pan in the kitchen of Beechmount house. She matured the early wheels of her unique blue cheese in the earthen floor cellar under the house.

The family-owned and managed business now spans two generations with the couple’s daughter Sarah, along with her husband Sergio Furno, continuing the family tradition, and they are now both company directors.