Northern Irish raw milk cheese producer for Italian festival

Northern Irish artisan cheese producer Mike's Fancy Cheese is promoting its award winning Young Buck blue cheese on the Italian market.

The handmade cheese business, which is based at Newtownards in county Down, is taking part in the big 'Cheese Festival' at Bra in Piedmont, near Turin, which runs from 18-21 September. Young Buck is Northern Ireland's only raw milk blue cheese.

The small business is owned by cheese enthusiast Mike Thomson and has become the preferred choice of restaurants and delis in Northern Ireland. The cheese is also on sale in delis in Britain, the Republic of Ireland, France and Germany.

Mike Thomson: "The Bra cheese festival is the perfect platform for me to grow awareness of my Young Buck cheese in the Turin area, the centre of the international slow food movement. It's an exciting occasion for me because of its focus on quality cheese. This event is especially suitable for me because it is showcasing raw milk cheese.

"I'll be looking for a distributor there or a network of delis interested in adding an Irish cheese to their portfolio.

"My participation in a cheese festival in Berlin last year led to significant business there," he adds.

Described as the biggest collection of quality cheeses in Italy each year, 'Cheese' is organised by Slow Food, the City of Bra and the Ente Turismo Alba, Bra, Langhe and Roero.

The event is usually held over the third weekend of September every two years and attracts around 150,000 cheese buyers.

The whole of Bra is involved with stands lining the length of the 'centro storico'. The overall aim is to promote regional producers and local products who are under threat from inevitable market forces.

Raw milk will be the focus of the conferences and the show. The Marketplace will feature exclusively raw-milk cheeses for the first time.

From its inception in 1997, Cheese has stood alongside producers who fought against the mainstream by choosing to work with raw instead of pasteurized milk. In 2001, Slow Food produced the Manifesto in Defense of Raw Milk Cheese.

"The truth is that the possibility of producing raw-milk cheeses in the world can't be taken for granted," says Piero Sardo, president of the Slow Food Foundation for Diversity and Cheese's scientific advisor. "Through Cheese and the determination of the French producers, raw-milk cheeses are now a reality beyond doubt for European institutions - even though many countries still have more restrictive national legislation than EU regulations. In the rest of the world, from the United States to Australia, these excellent products are banned, or only allowed with severe restrictions, such as a minimum aging of 60 days, for example."

The opening conference, to be held on September 15 at 2.30pm at the Teatro Politeama, will hear from a number of raw-milk cheese producers from all over the world.