The country’s supermarkets are finally making space for Indian artisanal cheeses. And this, believes Arvind Chawla, co-founder Darima Farms, is proof of the slow but steadily rising craft cheese market in India.
“We are taking away retail shelf space from foreign cheese. There is a gradual transition and Indian cheesemakers are gaining visibility. Not just in the domestic market, brands like Eleftheria cheese have also made a mark at international competitions,” says Arvind, whose farm makes eight variety of cheese and sells around 22 tons a year to all major markets from Chennai to Delhi.
The award-winning brunost from Eleftheria Cheese
The award-winning brunost from Eleftheria Cheese | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Mumbai-based Eleftheria Cheese’s brunost (a brown Norwegian cheese) won a Super Gold at the World Cheese Awards in Norway last year. “In 2021 and 2022, we won silver for our brunost,” says Mausam Narang, who started Eleftheria in 2015.
Eleftheria, Mausam explains, means freedom in Greek. For her, starting this creamery meant, freedom from a corporate job, as well as freedom from processed cheese. Obsessed with cheesemaking, by 2016, Mausam was supplying cheese to cafes and restaurants.
While they started with mozzarella and burrata, Eleftheria now makes 15 varieties of cheese. “Brunost was unusual for India before but it has picked up tremendously well. It’s one of our best selling cheeses now. It’s a whey cheese. Lot of clients are using it for dessert,” she says, adding that at Mumbai’s O Pedro, the restaurant serves a brunost jaggery tart.”
Eleftheria produces a couple of tons of cheese every month. “Cheese is basically separated milk solids. If we get 1,000 litres of milk, we get 100 kilograms of cheese,” says Mausam, adding that they have also started ageing cheeses.
Just back from a training session in France, Mausam says washed-rind cheeses is something she would like to experiment with now.
Mausam Narang, founder of Eleftheria Cheese
Mausam Narang, founder of Eleftheria Cheese | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Thrissur-based Anu Joseph Palathingal, who runs Casaro Creamery along with Freddy George, recently experimented with wine-soaked cheese which sold out quickly. The cheese is aged for three months and soaked in sweet red wine at different intervals. “The outer surface has the colour of wine while the interior remains white. The flavour of the cheese has notes of wine,” says Anu who started the creamery in 2018.