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Endeavour Blue named champion blue cheese
Blue cheese supremacy has earned the King Island cheesemakers the top national award.King Island Dairy Endeavour Blue was named the champion blue cheese at the 2009 Australian Grand Dairy Awards – the nation’s ‘best-of-the-best’ dairy foods competition.It marks a winning tradition stretching back to the inaugural awards in 1999 when King Island was named among the winners, with the same cheese being named Grand Champion in the 2004 awards.The Grand Dairy Awards showcase ‘the best of the best’ in Australian dairy products, to enter the show you need to qualify by winning a gold medal in one of the specified ‘qualifying’ cheese shows during the year, said Claire Perry of King Island Dairies“We enter (and win!) numerous shows from specialty cheese to royal agricultural shows – it is great that we constantly are recognised for having premium specialty hand made cheeses.“It’s a real team effort to supply all of our products all employees of King Island Dairy from our Farmers through to cheesemakers to the dedicated people who hand wrap the cheese make this happen.“An example of this is the Sydney Royal Show, which I was able to attend in February, helping as a steward where Roaring Forties, Discovery Ash Brie, Discovery Brie Rolle and Creamy Indulgent Yoghurt all won Gold medals and we were presented with Champion fancy cheese for Roaring Forties.Endeavour is the King Island Dairies ‘big gun’ blue cheese in both flavour and size and Ms Perry says it takes around 10 weeks to mature the 8kg wheel.“The Gorgonzola style is milder and slightly creamier in flavour when its young (when grading we often refer to it as a vegemite flavour) and then as it ages it gets more powerful and dryer in texture. Judges often note the balance, depth and evenness of the blue flavour for our Endeavour cheese.Making cheese is very much a team effort, with numerous people involved in making Endeavour cheeses which includes cheesemaking, hooping, hand salting, piercing, maturing and wrapping.“There isn’t a key cheesemaker on King Island as of previous times but instead we have a well supported team – Brett Hyland and Amber Keys lead the Blue production department, there is also Jason Dykstra, Ueli Berger and myself who help out when needed to provide them with technical support to keep the cheese at a consistent quality all year round.“It’s a real bonus for us to have so many people involved in the process as we can then all bounce ideas off one another for improvements, said Claire.Seasonal changes have an impact on milk, its something the KI Dairy team monitor constantly and adjust recipes to suit the changes in the milk. The particular Endeavour which won the Grand Dairy Award was made with early spring milk.The Australian Grand Dairy Awards are awarded to 18 products selected from more than 330 entries in cheese, milk, yogurt, ice cream and other dairy categories, representing 85 Australian dairy manufacturers.Claire Perry represented the King Island Dairy to receive the award “It’s always an honour to be part of presentations on behalf of the company, also to have the opportunity to network with other parts of the Australian dairy industry on a whole,” she said.Highly qualified technical experts, cheesemakers, providores, food media and chefs helped chief judge Neil Willman select the award-winning products.International judge Professor Sebastien Roustel, from the premier cheese and dairy education facility in France ENILBIO, was impressed by the high standard of quality among this year’s entrants.”Australian dairy farmers’ focus on quality milk enables them to produce world-class dairy produce,” said Professor Roustel.As well as recognising Australia’s highest-quality and innovative products, the awards also acknowledge the achievements of the highly skilled and pioneering people who produce these award-winning foods.King Island Dairy were also finalists in the following categories at the Grand Dairy Awards: Dairy Desserts: King Island Dairy Crème Dessert – Belgian Chocolate and Toffee Caramel. White Mould: King Island Black Label Double Brie. Blue Mould: King Island Bass Straight Blue