It’s a non-programming blog again, but this story is too good to share.

One of my colleagues, Andy, bought some cheese for Christmas from a specialist, and his mate pointed out that the same cheese was way cheaper at Morrisons (a popular supermarket in northern England).

So he threatened to post a bad review, and the Cheese Care & Quality Manager at the company gave him an essay about the cheese making process and schooling him how their cheese is higher quality.

So if you are interested in the process of making Stilton, then continue reading:

The Response:

Dear Andy,

Thank you so much for emailing us and giving us a chance to respond to this for you. I can certainly see why you would be both concerned and upset to see this really big price difference.

There are two answers to this question. The first is that the cheese isn’t identical. It is certainly made by the same producer but not to the same recipe. Most of the Stilton made by Cropwell Bishop is made in the main building at their dairy. It is a good cheese made by a talented producer, but the method of production involves moving large quantities of curds from the vat to the draining table using gravity.

The cheese that we buy is their hand-ladled animal rennet Stilton. This is made in a smaller room to the side of the main production area. In this room the cheese is made in much smaller vats and is made entirely by hand. A crucial step in Stilton making is the transference of the curds from the vat to the draining table. This is done by the traditional, painstaking method of ladling scoops of curds, one by one, and layering them up gently so that the fragile curds are as undamaged as possible. This method has a big impact on both the texture and flavour of the cheese.

Here is a photo of this taking place. You can see that it is a very different process to the large movement of curds that would happen in most larger scale cheesemaking.

A tiny proportion of the overall make of the dairy is made to this method, but this is the only one that we buy. We believe that you can really taste the difference and it is very interesting to do a side by side blind tasting. I hope you would agree that the cheese is not the same if you were to do this.

The second answer is that even given this difference, I am still really surprised to see their standard Stilton being sold at this price and can’t help wondering if Morrisons had some sort of promotion going on at Christmas. The Best range Stilton from Morrisons is usually made by the Long Clawson dairy rather than Cropwell Bishop. Long Clawson Stilton is much cheaper than Cropwell Bishop and is definitely considered to be of a lower quality by most in the cheese industry. I had a look at the Morrison’s site today and the “The Best” Stilton on the site is listed as being made by Long Clawson. In fact, I have never seen standard Cropwell Bishop Stilton being sold at this price. Cropwell Bishop themselves charge £20.57/kg when buying a half cheese and £23.68/kg when buying a 454g piece. They don’t sell their hand-ladled animal rennet Stilton online so I can’t make a comparison. 

I have also looked at other online retailers to get a sense of what other people are charging. The Cropwell Bishop standard Stilton varies from around £29.75/kg to £34.95/kg. So, while it is certainly true that Morrison’s would have much bigger purchasing power than we do, I still find the price of £15/kg to be a really surprising one and wonder if perhaps there may have been some trouble with supply from Long Clawson that led them to replace “The Best” range with Cropwell Bishop but charge the same price. However, this is speculation, and I may be wrong. I shall go to my local Morrisons and take a look as soon as I can out of interest. Perhaps they really do usually charge this price, in which case, they are undercutting both the supplier themselves and any other retailer that I know. I can only say that it is a huge bargain at this price and we would not have a business at all if we tried to compete with it. Our cheese is always well looked after in our maturing rooms and is cut fresh to order. It is never pre-cut and wrapped, which has a really detrimental impact on quality and we have confidence that we are supplying the best cheese that we can, both by buying only the hand-ladled Stilton and ensuring it reaches our customers as fresh as possible.

I very much hope this goes some way to explaining the price difference. Thank you for ordering your Christmas cheese from us. I very much hope you enjoyed it.

Best wishes,

Ruth

Cheese Care & Quality Manager