Blue cheese we know, but how about green cheddar? No, I’m not talking mould: Britain’s first batch of carbon-neutral cheese has just been produced and distributed, using only renewable energy.
Robin Betts – a third-generation dairy farmer at Wrotham in Kent – gets his raw material from his own herd at just the right temperature, starting work five minutes after milking ends, without burning any fuel to heat or transport it.
And, once made, his award-winning unpasteurised Winterdale cheddar matures for 10 months in a specially dug cellar that naturally maintains the correct temperature all year round.
The only energy needed is to cook the curds, and he now supplies it from a ground-source heat pump and solar panels, which produce more electricity than he needs. Part of the excess charges a Nissan Leaf electric car – decorated with pictures of cows and grass – with which he delivered the first carbon‑free consignments to Fortnum and Mason and London’s Goring Hotel last week.
“It was an emotional moment,” he says. “We took risks, but showed what could be done.”
So will the big cheeses of the food industry let him show them the, er, whey?
