The founders of renowned Victorian goat cheese producer Holy Goat have announced their retirement, the closure of their on-farm cheese factory, and the consequent removal from the market of La Luna, their prizewinning signature cheese.

Ann-Marie Monda and Carla Meurs will stay on the farm with their goats and continue to restore habitat for native animals. The herd will be milked through to April with the last cheese to reach the market in May.

Monda says she has been overwhelmed by the outpouring of sadness and shock from prominent chefs, including Matt Moran and Stephanie Alexander, since Good Food broke the news.

“I’m blindsided,” she says. “I had no idea there would be such a response. We have just done our job and lived our vocation.”

She notes that you never retire from a vocation. “We will be stepping into a different light of the vocation, being more attentive to our goats than we’ve ever been, seeing them in a different way,” she says. “We’ll be working on the farm, rewilding the habitat, using the goats to manage weeds and to live their life with us.”

The former teachers moved to Sutton Grange Organic Farm, 20km east of the central Victorian town of Castlemaine, in 1999 and started making La Luna four years later.

Soft and silky with an unmistakable wrinkly rind, the cheese has set the benchmark for chevre in Australia, scooping up countless awards in the process.

Holy Goat cheese is not cheap – a 110g chevre retails for about $25 – but the enterprise has never been about making money. “I wouldn’t say it’s a business that has made any profit even though some people think our cheese is expensive,” says Monda. “That’s the true cost of your food if you want ethical treatment of land, animals and people.”

La Luna is served in leading restaurants around the country, including Vue de Monde, Lake House, Rockpool Bar and Grill, and Sydney’s Quay.

“Australia has gorgeous cheeses but when I compare them to France, we usually lose a few points,” says Rockpool culinary director Corey Costelloe. “Holy Goat produces world-beating cheese. I haven’t tasted better goat’s cheese when I’m in France.”

Partners in business and life, Monda and Meurs are in their mid-60s. They milk a herd of 100 free-range goats, keeping the business deliberately small-scale and barely leaving the farm.

“It’s a great way to live,” Meurs told The Producers podcast in 2021. “You milk goats in the morning, make the cheese that morning and through the day, and milk them again at night and it rolls on like that.”

They name their goats and treat them like family. “The name Holy Goat suits how we want to be with goats and farming,” Monda told The Producers. “We’re reverential and respectful to them. We exist here as cheese producers because we have these extraordinary animals that provide milk to us and the joy and fun of living with a herd of animals.”

Lake House’s Alla Wolf-Taskerwas one of Holy Goat’s first customers. She notes that the owners not only created world-class cheeses but mentored others and shared what they had learned.

“They were all about controlling the size of what they did so they could keep a handle on it,” she says. “They would bring groups from [restaurant] kitchens in spring to see the babies. There was an educational component as well.”

“They have been the most significant thing to happen in our industry in the past 30 years, along with the relaxation of raw milk regulations, which was partly their doing as well.”

Anthony Femia, cheesemonger, Maker & Monger

Sally Gosper runs Sydney-based specialty food distributor Two Providores. “They’ve left a wonderful legacy,” she says. “They’ve educated people in hospitality and cheesemaking around Australia. There’s a celebration in that, even though it’s sad they will no longer make cheese.”

Top cheesemonger Anthony Femia is awed by Holy Goat’s place in Australian cheese history. “They have been the most significant thing to happen in our industry in the past 30 years, along with the relaxation of raw milk regulations, which was partly their doing as well,” says the owner of Maker & Monger at Prahran Market.

“Carla and Ann-Marie are trailblazing in terms of the holy trinity of care for land, care for animals, and care for milk, which adds up to incredible cheese,” says Femia.

“They took artisan cheesemaking to the next level, moving it away from mass-produced, industrialised, standardised products for supermarkets. Every cheesemaker has been inspired by them.”

Monda and Meurs profoundly affected Femia’s life. Early in his career, the aspiring Sydney cheesemonger won a scholarship that allowed him to spend time at Holy Goat in central Victoria.

“If it wasn’t for them, I would have stayed safe, done whatever everyone else did, the same boring thing,” he says. “They inspired me to move to Melbourne, change everything.”

Meurs also literally saved his life. “I got up at 6am and walked across to the milking shed half asleep,” he says. “There was a brown snake waiting at the door. Carla came over with a shovel, killed it without any hesitation and said, ‘Welcome to the country, young fella’. There is no one else like them anywhere.”