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Sainsbury’s has been selling British produce for over 130 years, and this year as part of their ‘Best of British’ campaign they are selling even more, from Scottish raspberries to Welsh beef to English cider.
Now meet the Barber family, who’ve been supplying Sainsbury’s with their delicious West Country cheese for 50 years.
The Barber family started farming and cheesemaking way back in 1833, and it’s hard to think of a more quintessentially English location than Maryland Farm, which lies in the heart of Somerset in the village of Ditcheat, 11 miles from Cheddar itself.
For the past 50 years, the family company has been supplying Sainsbury’s with locally-made cheddar. The current varieties – Taste the difference West Country Farmhouse Cheddar (mature and extra mature); English Extra Mature Cheddar and Taste the difference Vintage Reserve Cheddar – are all very popular.
But as Charlie Barber, one of the family team that runs the firm, explains, the relationship with Sainsbury’s began with the local school’s chaplain.
‘My uncle Paul and my father went to the school over the road from Maryland Farm and one day my uncle gave the chaplain some cheese. He took it to a friend of his who worked in a branch of Sainsbury’s in London, and within a few months we were supplying it to them. We haven’t looked back since.
‘Sainsbury’s and their customers have shown great loyalty to us and our West Country Farmhouse Cheddar. These days, more and more shoppers want to know where their food comes from, and our cheddar has a first-rate provenance – it’s a traditional, locally-made British food.’
While time has marched on at Maryland Farm and the latest technology is used when necessary, the method by which the cheese is made still dates back to the process used in the 1800s.
What makes the Barbers’ cheese so special is their traditional cultures – friendly flavour-producing bacteria that are added to the pasteurised milk at the start of the process. The cultures used to exist naturally in the milk of the region, and were isolated for the great flavours they produced by the many small artisan cheesemakers that existed back then.
Culture club
‘Today, the really big cheesemakers use freeze-dried cultures to make their cheese,’ says Charlie. ‘We’re the only ones of any reasonable size who have kept this collection of indigenous West Country cultures alive. The difference is all in the taste – the natural cultures produce a more delicate flavour with sweet and savoury notes. And there’s no question that our process is more authentic.‘
The curds are turned by hand in a process known as cheddaring. Later, the cheese is formed into blocks and placed in wooden boxes, which are kept at a carefully controlled temperature.
Cosseted cows
Each day cheesemaker Mark Tozer starts work by pasteurising the milk. First, rennet is added to the milk and cultures to produce junket, which is then separated into curds and whey. The curds are turned by hand in a process known as ‘cheddaring’, before salted curd chips are added. The cheddar is then formed into blocks and placed in wooden boxes to mature at a carefully controlled temperature of 11°C.
This process takes eight hours, but the maturing, tasting and selection of the cheddar that reaches Sainsbury’s shelves can take up to 2 years. The cheese is tasted at 3 months, 11 months, and then at every stage until it’s ready – sometimes by the hour. After a year the Mature Cheddar is ready, while Extra Mature takes 18 months, and the Vintage Reserve takes a whole two years. At every stage of the process, great care is taken to ensure that the cheesemaking process is adhered to. And it’s a similar story with the cows that make the milk. The Barbers have around 2,000 cows, all Holstein Friesians, a breed known for their highquality milk and plentiful yield.
‘All our cows are fed a diet of grass and silage, with cake to supplement at milking times,’ says Charlie. ‘We believe in keeping the cows outdoors for as long as possible, and each cow has its own mattress to make sure it’s comfortable in the stalls.’
All this care produces a cheddar that has been popular with Sainsbury’s customers for half a century. So does Charlie have a taste tip for cheddar fans?
‘I love the flavour of melted cheese and often go for a wholemeal pitta bread filled with melted cheddar, sliced tomato and a really delicious chutney.‘
Traditional cultures, cows on mattresses and allowing plenty of time. Charlie accepts that his approach is intensive; even idiosyncratic, but adds, ‘As with most things, taking more care and more time gives you a better result.’ Generations of satisfied Sainsbury’s customers would no doubt agree.
