Miel Meyer’s favourite food is a grilled cheese sandwich and that’s how he does a product test.
“I love food and I love good food but I’m real simple. I can just have a grilled cheese sandwich and that’s deluxe for me, that’s excellent. In the packing room and while you’re cutting cheese, you eat it. It’s just there and its off-cuts,” says the 2013 Crossroads Wines Champion of Champions Award winner.
GOOD VINTAGE: Miel Meyer and his local milk supplier and brother in law, Bert, from Meyer Gouda cheese in one of the storage rooms. Photo: Amy Nicholson
Artisan cheese making and hand-made cheese is relatively new to the dairy and food industry in New Zealand but is becoming increasingly popular. Although Fonterra still dominates large-scale dairy manufacturing and is advancing in the technology and research fields, smaller companies are expanding and have plenty to offer to consumers. Farmers’ markets, supermarkets and specialist food stores are expanding their range.
“That’s one of those trends, I guess. People really looking local, trying to get away from the genetic engineering, the mass-produced. People want to know that there’s some real care taken in their cheese or their bread, or their veges that have been grown by the local farmer,” says Miel.
Hand-made products and especially the local cheese market are making waves, and various companies will have their products at the Fieldays this year.
One of them is Meyer Gouda Cheese, a family owned company in Hamilton where Miel is the general manager. They’re artisan producers who specialise in traditional gouda, a vintage style of cheese from the Netherlands.
The dark green shed houses the office but used to be the Meyers’ family home.
The factory next door plays Radio Hauraki, the chiller is at the back and the milking shed is just across the driveway. Past the two trees and the white wooden house is where Miel lives. When he was a youngster, the family had little money.
They had to pay off the mortgage and the farm was the central link.
“You don’t get a big head or anything like that because you know that there’s been a lot of hard work gone into the business and I saw my parents work a very long time. It’s important to keep that in mind,” says Miel.
IN WAITING: Award winning Meyer Gouda cheese vintages age in a storage room. Photo: Amy Nicholson
After school Miel would eat a grilled cheese sandwich with onions and tomato sauce.
“Cheese was around before we were born. I’ve only ever known cheese,” says Miel.
When Miel was seven and his sister Fieke was ten they made a baby Gouda under the guidance of their parents.
Another local producer of artisan style cheeses is Sue Arthur, who first started making cheese in her own home from a mail order kit.
Sue thinks that countries like France lack innovation.
“They find it very challenging to think outside of that square and so I think countries like New Zealand and Australia are really well poised to make something different. We’re new to the industry and it hasn’t been a tradition of ours for thousands and thousands of years. We’re not restricted by those paradigms. We’re just innovative and I think that it’s in Kiwis’ nature more,” says Sue.
Burt, the farmer for Meyer Gouda cheese, thinks the dairy industry will keep advancing, “I think there’s a good future. There’s so much information out there I think it’s endless; I think it will just keep going. I don’t think it will come to a standstill.”
