About Neal’s Yard Dairy

We buy cheese from about seventy cheesemakers on farms around Britain and Ireland and we sell the cheese in our two shops in London and to shops and restaurants all over the world.
Our main aim is to keep in close contact with cheesemakers on one hand and customers on the other and above all to be in very close contact with all the cheese passing through our hands. We visit some cheesemakers very often; I select our cheddars by visiting the West Country every eight weeks and tasting through young cheese to select the batches that will be matured on for us. Apart from trying to find the best cheese available this is also when the cheesemaker can get a sense of how their cheeses are being received by customers.

Many of the cheeses we buy are either matured on the farm or in our own maturing rooms in Bermondsey which are in brick railway arches under the main line from London Bridge to Dover. The insulation provided by the venerable Victorian brick work helps us maintain good conditions for the cheese: humid and cool. A team of five take care of the cheese, turning the cheeses and sometimes brushing or washing them until they ripen.

The mature cheese is sent out to our own shops or in our own vans through London or by trucks all over the world. But our job doesn’t stop there. A carefully selected and perfectly ripened cheese can suffer in transit or at its destination so we do our best to keep in contact with customers to ensure all is well.

The website has taken a long time to prepare and I hope it gives good background information. But it is no substitute for coming into our shops, or shops and restaurants that we supply, and tasting and talking about the cheese.
Randolph Hodgson

For more information about company and their excellent cheeses go to Neal’s Yard Dairy website

For more information go to Camebert-AOC website.

Chaumes  is a cow’s milk cheese from Périgord (South West of France), made by traditional cheese-making processes. Translated literally, “chaumes” is French for stubble.

Based upon traditional Trappist-style cheeses, it is a rather popular cheese among modern French varieties, in particular with children. It is a soft pale cheese with a rich full-bodied flavour and smooth creamy and quite rubbery texture. Its aroma is generated by the cheese’s bright tangerine-orange soft rind. The rind appears after several washings of the crust, along with brushing with some ferments.

Maturation of the Chaumes takes four weeks. It is used as a table cheese and also for grilling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaumes_cheese

” LEPETIT, Un grand nom qui se mérite ”

LEPETIT is the most important and the oldest cheesemaker for traditional Camemberts.
In 1872, Léontine and Auguste LEPETIT open in St Pierre sur Dives (Calvados) on the street going to Thiéville the first establishment under their name : LEPETIT. Auguste LEPETIT is learning his know-how as cheesemaker since 1870 by working with his neighbour and friend Léon SEREY, himself producing Camemberts in Bretteville sur Dives.
In 1875, the activity of the firm is diversified : they begin to sell eggs and butter for which the package is specially adapted for long travels.

In 1890, Léontine and Auguste LEPETIT acquire the beautiful and vast Domain of Saint Maclou in Sainte Marie aux Anglais near Saint Pierre sur Dives. This domain is located in the famous ” Vallée d’Auge “. It remains still today the place where the Camembert LEPETIT is produced.

In 1902, Auguste LEPETIT creates a partnership under the name ” Auguste LEPETIT et ses fils “. It is also the period during which the milk cow’s breeding is growing successfully. From this breeding will born the famous Serpentine, a cow which will arrive first during the General Agriculture Show, and whose effigy is still present today on the labels of the Camembert LEPETIT.

Thanks to its leaders’courage and initiative sense, the firm will soon become a modern cheesemaking factory where 7 to 8000 camemberts are daily produced by 85 employees.

The high requirement will of Léontine LEPETIT, as well as the respect for tradition and the love for work well done, will help the brand LEPETIT by being recognized as the one of an equilibrated tasted Camembert often choosen by juges as one of the bests during Agriculture Shows.
In the thirtees, LEPETIT has already being three times rewarded with honours, and has received the highest distinction of Agricultural Merit as well as 58 gold and silver medals from which the most beautiful are still today represented on the label. In the forties, the firm LEPETIT is the leader of the Camembert’s french market.

LEPETIT has become a great brand of traditional cheese.

LEPETIT remains still today the most important reference in terms of ” AOC raw milk Camemberts ” ( which are the only one being from Normandy). It has also enriched its range of products with other traditional cheeses from which one can name the followin ones :
” Coulommiers Fromager ”
” Brie de Meaux ”
” Petit Brie Crémier ”
“Chaource ”

SOCIÉTÉ FROMAGÈRE DE SAINT MACLOU
Domaine de Saint MACLOU, Sainte Marie aux Anglais
14270 MEZIDON
Tél : 02.31.63.82.05 ­ Fax : 02.31.63.17.95

http://www.camembert-aoc.org/unil-uk/htm/mesnil-uk.htm

You can visit the website of LEPETIT by clicking hereafter : www.lepetit.fr ” Brillat Savarin Affiné “.