NZ goes crazy for real cheese

By Lesley Springhall

The smellier and runnier the better - our taste for real French cheese is getting stronger, according to Karl Crawford, business manager for Rhodia New Zealand.

"The speciality cheese market in New Zealand is growing at 20 per cent each year. And it's only in the last five years that our tastes have changed."

Rhodia, the speciality chemicals arms of French multi-national, Rhone Poulenc, supplies bacterial yeast and mould cultures for cheese-making to manufacturers like Whitestone Cheese in Oamaru and Kapiti in Paraparaumu.

Bob Berry, owner of Whitestone agreed: "We've been in the business 12 years and when we started we had a job to convince most Kiwis to even try white-moulded cheeses."

Mr Crawford said palates were changing because people were experiencing a raft of other foods and restaurants were getting more adventurous.

"It's a trendy restaurant type of thing. Restaurants are driving the demand by wanting more French style cheeses." Traditionally, he said, our Bries and Camemberts have been bland compared with the softer and smellier French versions.

Mr Berry said he believed the market for cheese had developed alongside the New Zealand wine market and increase in travel. "People are more aware of what they're eating. It's a whole other world now."

At this year's cheese awards, there were 410 entries from 27 producers compared to 102 from 15 at the 1994 inaugural competition. Sheep's milk cheese entries increased from three in 1995 to 16 in 1999.

"If you'd said you were going to produce cheese from sheep's milk in 1990 you'd have been laughed at," Mr Crawford said. He estimated there were now 20 specialist cheese manufacturers in the country, ranging from those producing 1200 tonnes at big plants to 30 tonnes in back yards.

Entries for the new and experimental cheese award doubled in the last five years and exports also were growing.

Trade New Zealand, which sponsored the export award, said the speciality cheese market had enormous potential. It returned $150 million in foreign exchange last year out of a total cheese export market of $892 million.