Shine Awards 2021: Coolamon cheesemaker Jennifer Nestor nominated
Shine Awards nominee Jennifer Nestor is transforming this local Riverina business into a globally recognised name in artisan cheese.
Jennifer Nestor is a nominee in The Weekly Times 2021 Shine Awards, supported by Harvey Norman. If you know a rural woman who deserves to be celebrated, nominate her now.
She has raised five children, forged a successful career as a respected cheesemaker, and won international acclaim for her artisan products.
Yet Jennifer Nestor says she is just getting started.
Since joining Coolamon Cheese as master cheesemaker two years ago, Jennifer has propelled the small brand from a much-loved local Riverina treasure to become an innovative leader in handmade lactose-free cheeses.
“My goal was a not to fail,” says the ever-humble Jennifer, who moved 550km from Nar Nar Goon in West Gippsland (where her five children, aged 18-22, still live today) to take up the lead role at Coolamon in 2019.
That same year, Jennifer perfected a lactose-free brie for the brand, and sent it off to the World Cheese Awards in Italy, where it won a coveted bronze medal.
What’s more impressive is the fact judges didn’t even know the cheese was lactose-free.
“When we came back with a bronze medal for the brie,” she says, “for me that was validation. It was the only Australian brie to win an award over there.
“The international award helped solidify my ability as a cheesemaker.”
Working closely with dairy farmers Neil and Simone Jolliffe, at Euberta, Jennifer starts the cheesemaking process by personally collecting up to 3000 litres of milk a week, directly from the family’s dairy silo.
“They have won awards for their milk as well,” she says. “I need clean milk with low bacterial cell counts, and that comes down to how well the farmers do their job.”
Jennifer is determined to push Coolamon Cheese on to bigger and better things – mirroring her own career, which started eight years ago.
“I spent most of my younger years bringing up kids,” she says, thinking back on what life was like before she took the leap into cheese in 2013.
“I have five kids and I had four under two. Life was absolutely ridiculous.
“When the youngest finally went to school, a job came up for cheesemaking assistant in an area where I used to go to school and I thought ‘yes, I found something I really wanted to do’.
“I had no idea what it would deliver.”
Starting in the packing room of Tarago River Cheeses at Neerim South, she worked up the ranks quickly, from packing to production, then supervisor and head cheesemaker.
She was craving more challenge when the lead position at Coolamon came up.
Former head cheesemaker Barry Lillywhite – a local who worked with Junee Licorice’s Neil Druce to get the brand off the ground in 2015 – was moving overseas, and Coolamon was searching for someone to build on what he had created.
Jennifer was equally excited and daunted by the challenge.
“I’d always struggled with self-belief growing up,” she says, explaining she also battled post-natal depression following the birth of her twins, Matilda and Isobella, now 21.
“But my husband said, ‘you know what, you can do it’.
“So I left the children (then in their early 20s) at home, and said there is the house, there are the bills, and my husband and I moved to Coolamon.”
The town welcomed Jennifer and her husband, Sean, as their own.
“They have really been wonderful at embracing us,” she says.
Her professional goal for Coolamon is to increase sales, increase production and make the business far more cost efficient.
“Getting the growth and the product out to more people is where it’s at … putting Coolamon on the map because it will benefit not only us, but the entire town,” she says.
Despite a speed bump to restaurant sales caused by Covid lockdowns, Jennifer says she is confident strong growth will return as the pandemic eases its grip.
“We were set to triple production before Covid … we were doing numbers that they had never seen before. Hopefully we can get back on track and keep that trajectory going.”
Despite the unforeseen separation from her children, due to Covid border closures, Jennifer believes she is in just the right place.
“My kids have been amazing. I hope I inspire them. They are so proud of what I have managed to achieve,” she says.
“Food is really a part of our family – it is who we are. To me cheese is just an extension of that.
“If you love anything, your sole purpose is to create the best thing you can possibly create, and you will.”
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