Product: Cheese and fresh dairy
What: Farmhouse cheese and fresh dairy made from a single herd, only distributed within 100 kilometres of the farm.
Where: Glen Forbes, Bass Coast Shire, Boonwurrung Country
Who: Dairy farmer Glen Bisognin and his partner, Kaye Courtney, cheesemaker
Glen, you only cater to the local community.
We want to return to the good old-fashioned model where there was a dairy in every town and a cheese and butter factory in every community.
You use the term “whole milk”. What does that mean?
What the cows produce each day goes straight into the bottle. We don’t remove any cream from the milk like the big processors do, and we don’t add skim milk powder. The milk may vary throughout the year as the seasons, pastures, and weather change. We don’t homogenise our milk, we just pasteurise it so it’s legal to sell. Our milk is a true reflection of our herd, the seasons, and the pastures on which they graze. I think the French call it “terroir”.
Tell us about the farm and the herd.
Our family has been farming here since my dad started in the 1960s. We have 235 acres (95 hectares) on the Bass flats near the shores of Western Port. We maintain a small mixed herd of Jersey, Holstein, and Australian Reds, which are great for butterfat and protein. We keep our numbers low to avoid putting stress on the land. We farm like our grandparents did – no insecticides or herbicides. We live on this land, and we don’t push the herd or the land. Healthy soil equals a healthy herd.
Tell us about the cheese.
We make white-mould Camembert- and Brie-style cheeses, a variety of feta, haloumi, washed-rind Taleggio, and semi-hard Cheddars, along with a Parmesan-style cheese aged for three years. My family background is Northern Italian, and I reckon our Parmesan stands up to anything made in Reggio Emilia.
Where can we try your products?
Come to our farm café on the way to Phillip Island, where you can taste the entire range for free. You can see some of the herd and the cheese being made. This is the real thing – we are extremely artisan, producing small batches by hand. Come and see us.
Where can we find you? The address is 2125 Bass Highway, Glen Forbes. You can also visit our website at bassinespecialtycheeses.com.au.