Cheese maker wins maiden show awards

Mr Vogel, who owns Dellendale Creamery, is the cheese maker and he has a part-time helper who helps wrap and pack.

He also won Champion Cheese and Champion Bovine Cheese trophies and sashes with his Churchill Road Raclette.

Mr Vogel’s cheeses won four gold and one silver medal in the show’s dairy section competition completed before the show opened last Saturday.

The Churchill Road Raclette and his Mt Shadforth Tilsit and Nullaki cleaned up in class 14 for semi hard and eye (cheese with holes) cheeses, each winning gold.

Dellendale Creamery’s Torndirrup Native Herb also won gold in class 18 for firm cheese, other than Feta, with added flavour.

Mr Vogel, who grew up milking cows with his Swiss-born father on the Dellendale property, completed an apprenticeship in cheese making in Switzerland and worked in cheese factories there for 10 years before returning to Denmark.

He started handmaking cheeses as a hobby seven years ago and slowly developed it into a micro-manufacturing business.

Now he buys fresh milk direct from neighbours Malcolm and Kellee Hick, who were the first dairy farmers in the district to install a robotic dairy, and concentrates on making a range of cheeses that are sold through IGA stores, wineries and local retail outlets.

Mr Vogel said this was the first year he had entered the IGA Perth Royal Show dairy competition.

“It’s a great buzz to win the (Best Small Cheese Maker) award, it’s really great and I think it will help the business,” Mr Vogel said.

“But it also means I’ve got to do some planning for the future – the cheeses that won gold (in class 14) are all long ripening, they take about three months to mature.

“We’re only a very small business so I have to work out what it (award) will mean for the business and how much extra cheese we might have to produce,” he said.

A special award as Best Small Other Dairy Product Maker was won by Hillarys gourmet gelati maker The Milk Barrel Pty Ltd.

The Milk Barrel also won the Champion Gelati trophy and sash with its Black Sesame flavoured gelati and won a total of five gold medals for different flavours in the category.

Champion Buffalo, Camel, Goat and Sheep Milk Product was won by Cambray Cheese, Cundinup, with its St John’s Brook sheep cheese.

Champion Yoghurt was won by Mundella Foods, Mundijong, with its Greek Natural Yoghurt, a consistent medal winner in the category.

Champion Ice Cream was won by York Ice Cream Co, York, for its Mango Ice Cream.

Parmalat Australia Pty Ltd’s Harvey Fresh division, Harvey, won Champion Milk Unflavoured with Farmhouse Gold Full Cream Milk and Bannister Downs Dairy, Northcliffe, won Champion Milk Flavoured with Betty’s Milk Bar Spearmint Blitz.

Bannister Downs also won the Champion Other Products trophy with its Double Cream.

More than 400 dairy products from across Australia were entered in the competition.

Visitors to the show have a chance to taste some of the award winners in the dairy pavilion.

“The WA dairy pavilion is the only truly collaborative dairy showcase in WA to attract everyone from your local farmer to your processor, cheese maker, chocolatier, barista and ice cream maker – it really is a celebration all those involved in producing WA’s outstanding dairy and value-added products,” said WAFarmers dairy section president Michael Partridge.

The dairy pavilion displays highlight the ‘grass to glass’ process, and offer visitors the opportunity to milk cows and to turn milk into butter and cheese and young visitors can bottle feed calves.

The show is on at the Claremont Showgrounds until this Saturday.