FAQ
Below are some of the questions we’re often asked.
Take a look through and you might find the answer you’re looking for.
- You can freeze cheese and it will taste the same. What you will find though is that it does become even more crumbly. If you are using it for cooking or for a cheese sauce that wouldn’t be an issue but we wouldn’t recommend it on your cheeseboard! We recommend grating the cheese before you freeze it.
- Yes, you need to keep the cheddar refrigerated below 5°C. We recommend however that you take the cheese out of the fridge 30 minutes before serving. This allows it to come up to room temperature so you can experience the flavour at its best.
- No, but all our farms adhere to the highest welfare standards. We have our own Davidstow Farm Standards and in addition they are all part of the Red Tractor Farm Dairy Farm Assurance scheme.
- We’re afraid not. The creamery is a working production site and as such we cannot permit public access.
- Yes, we do not use animal rennet in our cheese-making process.
- We source our milk from a number of farmers across the South West, and since May 2017 exclusively from farms in Cornwall. While we have ideal grass growing conditions we do not stipulate any required feeding regime believing that our farmers know what works best for their animals and their businesses.
Our plastic film is not yet recycled through kerbside collection. You can however now recycle your flexible plastic cheese packaging through the TerraCycle® Cheese Packaging Recycling Programme.
The wax we use to protect and present our Ingots is not yet recycled.
The parchment paper wrap used on our hand-wrapped blocks is widely recycled once the product label is removed. The product label is not yet recycled.
- We can’t give a definitive time on this, but to ensure the cheese is as fresh as possible keep well sealed – in an airtight container or wrapped tightly in cheese paper, beeswax wrap or similar – and in the fridge.
- The white deposit on the surface is due to the formation of salts also known as calcium lactate. Salt crystals come to the surface as the cheese matures, so you will find that this type of cheese will have this appearance and texture to it which is perfectly normal and a sign of great quality cheddar.
- Davidstow is made from cows’ milk.
- The plastic film we currently use to wrap most of our cheese acts as a barrier to keep oxygen out, prevent spoilage and stop any unwanted foreign bodies or allergens contaminating the cheese. The plastic film is made up of a number of different layers. As a result of these layers, this packaging is not currently widely recyclable and there are presently no recyclable materials that deliver equivalent levels of food protection, quality and safety. We are on a mission to make all of our packaging recyclable by 2025. You can read about our packaging and sustainability commitments here.
At Davidstow quality is our number one mantra and we’re hugely proud of the top quality cheddars we produce. If you eat our cheddars alongside many supermarket cheddars, we’re sure you will immediately notice the difference!
To ensure that our milk is of the best possible quality we source exclusively from select Cornish farms and we reward our farmers for supplying the optimal milk for cheese making. We mature our cheeses for longer than many supermarket cheddars to produce a richer, more complex flavour, and we always work to specific maturation ages (which we stipulate on pack), so you can be sure of always getting the same, consistently great tasting cheese every time you buy.
Some of our more mature cheddars on sale through the Davidstow shop are not available in supermarkets as the complexity of ageing a cheddar for this long means we simply aren’t able to produce in the volumes required to supply a major supermarket. You can learn more about what makes Davidstow special in ‘What Makes a Superior Cheddar’, accessed via our ‘Shop’ page.
- The starter cultures (good bacteria, similar to what yeast is to bread) used in Davidstow cheeses start to ferment the milk. Over time, they react with the milk proteins to develop flavours that are characteristic of Davidstow cheddar.
- As a cheese matures, the level of flavour builds within the cheese and also some moisture loss occurs. This is part of the natural process of cheese maturing and is the reason that mature cheese has a more crumbly texture than mild cheese.
