Roger Longman from White Lake Cheese is celebrating a raft of wins from the British & Irish Cheese Awards last week, after the Somerset-based cheesemaker took home three of the competition’s most prestigious trophies.
Following a day which saw over 600 entries judged by 60 experts at the Bath & West Showground, White Lake was presented with the Best Modern Cheese trophy for its Sheep Rustler, a semi-hard sheep’s milk cheese, aged for three months; the Best Flavour-Added Cheese trophy for Eve, a soft, goat’s milk cheese washed in Somerset cider brandy and wrapped in vine leaves; and the Best Fresh Cheese trophy for its Somerset Goat Halloumi, which is made using 100% goat’s milk from Roger’s own herd at Bagborough Farm in Pylle.
In addition to landing the top spot in all three of these categories, White Lake also won a further 23 prizes at the British & Irish Cheese Awards, securing seven Gold, eight Silver and eight Bronze accolades. With over 30 styles of cheese currently made by hand at the farm, these awards went to a wide range of products, including goat’s milk cheeses, Driftwood, Rachel, Shilling, Tor, Pavé Cobble, Kingfisher Blue, Smo’King of the Castle and Goat Curd; sheep’s milk cheeses, English Pecorino, Fetish and Little She; and cow’s milk cheeses, Solstice, Glaston Tile, Glastonbrie and Moo’dy Blue.
Roger Longman, owner and founder of White Lake Cheese, commented: “We pride ourselves on diversity and ingenuity at White Lake, but this has to go hand-in-hand with quality and consistency or all of our creative sparks will go to waste. I’m absolutely delighted for the team here to have three trophies and many more awards to show for their efforts, as they all give us their best, day in day out. We’ve won plenty of awards in the past, but it never gets any less important to do well. British cheesemaking is raising its game every year, so we’re benchmarking ourselves each time we enter. It means a lot to us to come out on top.”
White Lake Cheese’s full range is available to purchase from whitelake.co.uk, as well as from independent retailers across the UK.
