A new soft blue cheese Highland Blue, specially developed by Tain cheese-maker Rory Stone for the North Highlands Initiative's Mey Selections brand, may lead to new opportunities for the hard-pressed dairy-farming sector in the county. The new cheese has been tipped by experts to rapidly become a festive favourite on cheese boards at the other end of the country following its Gold Medal-winning debut at the prestigious British Cheese Festival in Cheltenham.
Produced by Highland Fine Cheeses Ltd, the new cheese uses milk supplied from the dairy farms in Caithness. It is combined with a traditional rennet to create a distinctive highland flavoured soft blue cheese described by the cheese maker, Rory stone, as: 'Tangy and long; a soft rich blue with creamy notes and a mellow aftertaste'.
Sainsbury will sell the cheese on its delicatessen counters in 23 stores in the South of England. Mey Selections Highland Blue joins premium Mey Selections beef which is already successfully being sold in the same stores.
Cheese-maker Rory Stone is optimistic about the prospects for his new Highland Blue which is launched this week in London and the South on the delicatessen counters of 23 Sainsbury stores in time for the festive season. He said: "Its great to see a natural North Highland product, using pure, local produce being selected by Sainsbury and given a chance in the highly competitive gourmet cheese market in the South."
He went on; "Creating a successful new cheese is a big enough challenge on its own but the high quality and local sourcing standards of the Mey Selections brand raised the bar even higher for us. But what we have going for us here in the North Highlands are our long unbroken dairy tradition of farmers and cheese makers working together in the region and the special quality of our natural ingredients. Having said that we could not have got this far so soon without the help from Mey Selections and the North Highland Initiative."
Next week Rory heads for London for a hectic round of Highland Blue tastings and store promotions to help launch the cheese to Christmas food shoppers. He said: "Now it's produced and is being sold in a major retail store we hope to see demand for Highland Blue grow so that we can increase production and move into new types of cheese. This will help dairy farmers in the region and give us all another route to market."
Robert Gray, NHI Project Coordinator believes the success of the cheese will have benefits for the area's wider economy. "If the cheese does as well as we hope and demand continues to grow then there is every possibility of expansion of production at Tain bringing extra jobs and income to Ross-shire. Already this new cheese is helping the hard-pressed dairy farming sector by creating a new demand for milk supply from North Highlands."
Highland Fine Cheeses began in the 1950's in the farmhouse of dairy farmers Reggie and Susannah Stone who first used the family bath to warm churns of milk until they formed into cheese. The Stone's small herd of dairy short horns, farmed at Blarliath on the southern shores of the Dornoch Firth, supplied the milk to grow the business and produce what has become the crofting community's staple cheese. Their son, Rory Stone, continues the family tradition, taking all his milk from dairy farmers in Caithness and has now produced the Cheltenham Gold Medal winning Highland Blue exclusively for Mey Selections.
