Royal Melbourne Show gong for Moondarra’s blue cheese
Moondarra and Tarago Cheese owners say flavoured cheeses sell well amid living pressures with their newly-acquired blue cheese winning top accolade.
Moondarra’s blue cheese has snared the blue ribbon at this year’s Melbourne Royal Show, highlighting a new palatable partnership.
The Dandenong business added Tarago River Cheese to their portfolio last year, gaining the award-winning Shadows of Blue product to their portfolio.
“Tarago has beautiful products, the Shadows of Blue is an absolute gem and we’ve always known it,” Moondarra Cheese chief Nick Katis said.
“We knew the previous owners very well and we thought it was a perfect fit for our business.”
One dairy farmer, based at Neerim South, sources the Tarago range, while there are four main Gippsland farmers contributing to the Moondarra brand.
Nick said the Moondarra factory at Dandenong South had an automated process with tankers for milk and cream daily, while Tarago was smaller-scale with handmade cheese.
“We’re very committed to really growing Tarago cheese because it’s got such huge potential, they’re only making a small amount of cheese relative to what we think it could do,” he said.
Nick started the business in 1999 with co-founder Matthew Freeman, making flavoured cream cheese.
The Moondarra label, with honey and pistachio, marinated cheese, sweet chilli, and melon and mango products among others, is at major Australian supermarkets and exported to China, Japan, Korea and the United States.
Nick said the speciality cheese category was struggling amid inflationary pressures, but flavoured cheese continued to sell strongly.
Moondarra Cheese co-owner and director Becky Thyssen said there was a broad cross-section of people trying the cheeses at Melbourne Royal.
“There are a lot of young people coming through who tasted the blue,” she said.
“Nine out of 10 people say it’s really good, and forking out over $10 a wedge for blue cheese which I found really heartening, they knew the quality.”
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