Why raw milk cheese is worth it

Brie de Meaux. Comté. Parmigiano Reggiano. What do these cheeses have in common? They are made with raw milk. 

There is a reason many of the best-known, most-loved cheeses in the world are made exclusively with raw milk. “Raw milk cheese is more complex,” says our Technical Director Bronwen Percival. “If it wasn’t, we’d all bring out the pasteurisers and call it a day.” 

The worst thing about pasteurisation is also the best thing about pasteurisation: it kills microorganisms living in milk. That includes microorganisms that can make people sick. It also includes microorganisms unique to each herd, farm, and dairy; microorganisms that help develop unique flavours and textures in cheese. 

The cream-coloured paste and wrinkled rind of St Jude

“We all want to use great ingredients in our recipes,” says Julie Cheyney, who makes beloved raw cow’s milk cheeses St Jude and St Cera. For Julie, the foundation of cheesemaking is great milk, produced by healthy animals with a varied diet. “If you have that, why would you pasteurise it?” 

When raw milk cheese is good, it’s very, very good 

By killing microorganisms living in raw milk, pasteurisation eliminates variation. In other words, it strips away the milk’s character. That’s not always a bad thing.  

“[With raw milk cheese] you're going to get the odd batches that are like, ‘whoa. I’ve not come across this before. That’s amazing,’” says Carrie Rimes, who makes the raw sheep’s milk cheese Brefu Bach. “There are going to be some batches... you might call them interesting.” That’s a diplomatic way to say strong, unexpected, and even off-putting. 

Pasteurised milk, on the other hand, can be made into consistently delicious cheese. “For your average pasteurised stuff ... you’re going to know pretty much what you’re going to get every single time. On average, it might actually be better than unpasteurised,” Carrie says. “But you’re never going to get those really amazing batches.”  

Those really amazing batches are thanks to the bacteria, moulds, and yeasts that live in milk. They vary from farm to farm, herd to herd; even day to day. “What’s going on for those cows in that part of the world, at that time of year?” Julie says. All of that influences the balance of microbial life in raw milk. 

Sometimes, that one-of-a-kind microbial mix aligns with skilled cheesemaking in just the right way. The result is a particularly delicious cheese: St Jude that tastes of caramel and salted peanuts, or delightfully chewy, floral Brefu Bach. Carrie calls them batches that “sing.”  

Raw milk cheese makers take safety seriously 

With great microbial diversity – and great potential for delicious cheese – comes great responsibility. Because raw milk cheese makers don’t eliminate pathogenic bacteria with pasteurisation, they must take extra care to ensure pathogenic bacteria don’t enter the milk in the first place. “I'm in the cheese room looking at things the whole time,” Julie says. “I'm there with the bucket and scrub brush. I’m there watching other people clean.” 

Hygiene is just the beginning – or, rather, the end. The first step to safe, delicious raw milk cheese is safe, delicious raw milk. St Jude Cheese is based on Dulcie and Jonny Crickmore’s family farm in Suffolk, which is home to a healthy herd of Montbéliard cows.  

Cows graze on green grass under blue skies at Fen Farm

In addition to regularly sending milk samples off for official laboratory testing, the team performs simple, daily on-farm tests for so-called indicator bacteria. Low levels of indicator bacteria are a signal that the milk is being produced with the utmost level of care. “We’re using Petrifilm tests so we can make sure everything is going in the right direction,” Julie says. Petrifilms are not definitive, she explains, but an aid to flag issues for further investigation with the help of a certified laboratory. If their on-dairy, daily test comes back with concerning results, the team can begin investigating the issue and ordering additional microbiological tests immediately.  

Milk is so fresh that it is still warm when Julie begins her work. “The milk is piped from the milking parlour to the cheese room where, barely an hour old, the cultures are added to acidify the milk and thus the cheesemaking process has begun,” she wrote on her website. That gives pathogenic bacteria less time to proliferate before the starter cultures get to work.  

So, is pasteurised cheese safer to eat than raw milk cheese? Not necessarily. Careless practices can introduce pathogenic bacteria at any time – including after pasteurisation. All it would take is one poorly cleaned piece of equipment to introduce Listeria monocytogenes to a vat of perfectly pasteurised cheese-in-the-making. And without bacteria ready to outcompete that Listeria, it could proliferate, ultimately reaching vulnerable customers and making them sick.  

“The great thing about raw milk cheese is you know it is produced to the highest standard—there is no safety net. Many people who make pasteurized cheese take great care with that milk too, but you don’t have to be perfect if you pasteurise,” Bronwen says. “That is the moral hazard of pasteurisation.”  

British raw milk cheese is rare 

In the United Kingdom, we eat plenty of raw milk cheese. Just not British raw milk cheese.  While French cheeses like Roquefort and Reblochon are stocked on supermarket shelves, British raw milk cheeses are a specialty product, found in specialty shops. And even that is at risk. “Neal’s Yard used to have so many raw milk cheeses,” Julie says. “There are fewer on the counter than there used to be.”   

Why? The short answer is that it is very difficult to make raw milk cheese. Part of this is fundamental to the product. Raw milk is different every day. That means the cheese recipe must be slightly different every day. It takes a very skilled, very patient cheese maker to make these adjustments. 

The small converted church where Carrie Rimes makes Brefu Bach

Government regulation adds another layer of difficulty. Raw milk cheese makers often face higher levels of scrutiny from the environmental health officer assigned to their dairy. “I have to do three lots of shelf-life studies, per product, per year -- all on these very tiny production quantities,” Carrie says. For an industrial cheese maker, completing that number of shelf-life studies – tests of how long a product stays fresh – would be simple. For Carrie, who operates a microdairy in a converted church, it is a herculean effort.  

“It's really difficult,” Carrie says. “But we're still here.” She’s not alone. “I want to stay small and stay raw,” Julie says. For cheese makers like Carrie and Julie, the natural variation of raw milk cheese – and the amazing heights it can reach – make it all worth it. 

At Neal’s Yard Dairy, it’s our job to bring out the best in their cheeses and encourage as many people as possible to try them. “Unless people go out of their way to eat raw milk British cheese, it will be gone,” Bronwen says.   

We are proud to sell over two dozen British raw milk cheeses. You can find them in our shops and on our website.