drysdale cheeses
Goat milk and cheese producer
1 Scotchmans Road Bellarine
Established 2005
Employees 2 people 365 days a year
Marketing Focus is membership of Tourism Greater Geelong and the Bellarine and the Bellarine Taste Trail. Annual spend $500.
about drysdale cheeses
The first commercial goat cheese manufacturer on the Bellarine Peninsula, Drysdale Cheeses concentrates on creating a range of hand made cheeses manufactured from high quality milk from the herd of Saanen goats.
Living on the Bellarine property, the herd of purebred goats are milked daily and fed a diet comprising unimproved pasture, tree cuttings, pasture hay and a homemade ‘goat muesli’. Seaweed meal and salt licks provide extra essential minerals and vitamins.
While not organic-certified, Drysdale Cheeses follows permaculture farming principles and ethical animal treatment. Animals that are heavily pregnant are not milked and newborn kids stay with their mums for those important first few days to enjoy the all-important colostrum. Each doe only kids once every two years for her optimal health.
The milk is transported to the cheese making room at Drysdale where cheesemaking cultures are added to the milk after pasteurisation, for flavour ripening. An enzyme called rennet (only vegetarian rennet is used) is added to coagulate the milk and produce curds and whey.
Drysdale Cheeses are only available locally, at selected restaurants.