Mouldy hay bale leads to new NZ cheese

A new type of cheese has its cheese makers hoping it will put New Zealand on the map.

Whitestone Cheese, head cheesemaker Chris Moran, had spent months searching for mould to use for the new blue-vein cheese, searching local limestone caves – the same type of caves found in Bath and Stilton, in England, where some of the most famous producers of blue vein cheese are produced – but had no luck. Until the mould was eventually discovered in the most unlikely of places…

The members of the company’s lab team found the strand after a local beef farmer at Shenley Station contacted them when he discovered some funny looking mould in the haylage “… and lo and behold it was blue mould!” said Whitestone Cheese chief executive Simon Berry

“We are at the point now of final testing. We have sent tests over to Germany, and it is good to eat.” said Berry.

The cheese, which had a mild flavour and tasted like raw mushrooms, and is the only one of its kind in Australasia.