Cambray Cheese is dedicated to making genuine farmhouse cheese.
History
Cambray Sheep Cheese is a small family-operated business run by the Wilde Family which has achieved remarkable success since opening in 2005. The unique range, all awarded gold medals, includes soft white-mould cheeses, a traditional Greek style feta, and a variety of matured cheese including the famous Farmhouse Gold.
Cambray’s vision was borne from Jane’s passion for dairy, which stemmed from her childhood of helping her mother milk their house cow and churn butter in Karragullen, paired with Bruce’s experience in sheep, growing up on a sheep farm in Pingelly. This led them to purchase a farm on the outskirts of Nannup in 1995.
The former policeman and nurse begun the journey by importing 3 East Friesian milking sheep into Western Australia in 1997, they then started the lengthy process of breeding a suitable milking flock. By 2003 they commenced building the factory. At this time, youngest son Tom was leaving school and started to help out, Bruce and Tom built the factory by themselves and it was ready to start cheese making by 2005.
With guidance from a Dutch cheesemaker friend (Eddie Bestbier, who has now joined Cambray as head Cheesemaker), Jane and Tom developed their own unique style of sheep and later on, cow’s milk cheeses. Originally selling the cheese through local farmers markets and their own farm shop, the business has expanded somewhat since the beginning and now supplies many of WA’s top restaurants and specialty cheese stores. Cambray prides itself on its high quality and traditional methods for a true paddock to plate product.
The Cheese
Cambray Cheese specialises in both sheep and cow’s milk cheeses, with the sheep milk products being seasonal. The sheep milk season runs from approximately September through to March, where up to nearly 150 sheep are milked twice a day on the farm…producing on average 1L per sheep per day. During this time Cambray produces a variety of soft cheeses, as well as hard cheeses which are matured from anywhere from 12 months through to 4 years. All Cambray’s sheep milk cheeses are considered ‘Farmhouse’ status, meaning the sheep are milked on the farm, then processed on the farm by the farmer.
Cambray also do a selection of cow’s milk cheeses throughout the year. The cow’s milk is sourced from ‘Walsall Dairy’ a small family run dairy just out of Busselton in Acton Park. Walsall Dairy have received numerous gold plaque awards in the Dairy Australia Milk Quality Awards. This award acknowledges they produce the best quality milk based on annual average bulk milk cell count, they were in the top 100 in Australia. This high milk quality results in great tasting cheeses
Every stage involved in producing Cambray’s range of handmade cheese happens right here on the family farm using age-old techniques.
The result? Pure, award-winning farmhouse cheese of exceptionally high quality.
