A nurse by trade, Teresa Roche has thrown herself into the family dairy business over the past five years, and transforming the farm where four generations of the Roche family have worked over the past 60 years, into a producer of long-ageing, hard Alpine cheeses.
Roche started Kylemore Farmhouse Cheese in 2017, and it required that facilities were built and converted before the business entered production in 2018, and it now makes three kinds of cheese -- a young, smooth and creamy cheese, a long-ageing hard mountain cheese, and another cheese specifically for nearby Ashford Castle.
What started as a way to "add value and diversify" the farm's milk has taken several years to get off the ground, with Roche taking business courses at night and undertaking product research trips to France, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, where she learned the art of cheese making. She also received assistance from her Local Enterprise Office.
"A cheese maker out there kindly took me under his wing and showed me the craft of cheese making but also how to make a high quality product similar to Switzerland in Ireland," Roches explains, adding that she has also been supported by Marion Roeleveld, from Killeen Farmhouse Cheese "down the road".
Roche says the Irish cheese palette is most associated with cheddar, but that Irish people are excellent travellers and that tastes have changed over the past 25 years, and there is a "big niche market for speciality hard cheeses" such as comté, gruyère and parmesan.
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"I felt I had a big draw through these speciality cheeses, which weren’t being produced very much in Ireland," she says, adding that the key components to the cheeses are summer milk from pedigree, grass-fed cows in a closed, controlled herd.
"The long-ageing was a draw because it gives me time to get the business off the ground, but also develop my product. And it gives me the opportunity to grow the market with all the new business."
Roche is now assisted by two to four part-time staff for manufacturing and distribution, depending on the season, with another two working part-time in the farm shop. Kylemore cheeses are also sold online and some branches of Sheridan's.
At the minute, Roche is trying to bring in equipment to assist with innovation and labours costs; overhauling the website, and she has plans to expand and refurbish the farm shop with more seating and a more personable feel.
"Cheesemaking is very handcrafted and it is time-consuming and that won't change, but it will hopefully take some of the pressure off," she says of the new equipment. She also has ambitions of increasing exports to the UK and Europe in the coming years.
Ahead of Kylemore's exhibit on the Artisan Producer's Row at Taste of Dublin next month, Roche is looking forward to telling people about the company and "showcasing what we do every day, and giving everyone a little taste of Galway in Dublin."
Kylemore will be at Taste 2022 June 16 - 19, located at the Artisan Producers Row in front of the band stage. Tickets for the Iveagh Garden event can be found HERE.
Photo: Teresa Roche.
