Hafod

A Welsh-made Cheddar cheese with rich, layered flavours and a supple texture, its interior reveals a warmly golden paste and the occasional blue vein.

Natural larded rind.

*Please note that we sell both a pasteurised and a raw milk version of this cheese. The cheese you receive will be labelled with the appropriate milk treatment.
Portion
Price
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Average age 10-18 months

Raw or Pasteurised Cow's MILK, Salt, Cheese Cultures, Animal Rennet, Matured with Lard

Standard delivery is free to most postcodes in the UK for orders over £39.50. Click here for a list of postcodes where additional delivery charges apply.

For orders under £39.50, standard delivery is £8.00.

Collection from our London shops is free - choose Shop Collection at checkout.
  • Spend over £39.50 to receive free delivery (England, Wales & Central Scotland)
Hafod
Hafod
Location: Hafod map
our-work: Hafod on the shelves of the cheese store at Holden Farm Dairy
Hafod
Hafod
Location: Hafod map
our-work: Hafod on the shelves of the cheese store at Holden Farm Dairy

Made by Becky & Patrick Holden & the Team at Holden Farm Dairy

Ceredigion, Wales

Hafod is made on a Welsh dairy farm where almost all of the cows' feed and bedding is produced on the farm's land.

Situated near the coast in west Wales, Bwlchwernen Fawr has been home to the Holden family since the early 1970s. A leading figure in the Soil Association and more recently the Sustainable Food Trust, Patrick Holden's influence on British farming has been considerable, but it wasn't until his son Sam returned to Bwlchwernen Fawr in 2007 that they began making cheese on the farm. Hafod is Welsh for 'summer place' or 'pasture', and it's on such pasture – up the hill from the river Aeron – that the Holdens' 80-strong herd of Ayrshire cows graze when they're not sheltering for winter. The vast majority of the herd's diet is grown on the farm's land, as is the straw for the indoor bedding: for the past four decades the family have been working toward a system where the farm is wholly self-sustaining.

We visit Holden Farm Dairy three times a year, and our visits are different to our other Cheddar selections. As Bwlchwernen Fawr is so far away, when we visit we spend time with the team looking over make notes and correlating those observations with our tasting notes, helping to shape the team's future experiments and approach.
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