Neal's Yard Dairy
Encyclopedia
Cheese
Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....
retailer and (formerly) cheesemaker
Cheesemaker
A cheesemaker is a person who makes cheese.The craft of making cheese dates back at least 4,000 years. Archaeological evidence exists of cheesemaking by the ancient Egyptian civilizations....
, described as "London's foremost cheese store." The store is considered as a forerunner of the British wholefood
Whole foods
Whole foods are foods that are unprocessed and unrefined, or processed and refined as little as possible, before being consumed. Whole foods typically do not contain added ingredients, such as salt, carbohydrates, or fat. Examples of whole foods include unpolished grains, beans, fruits, vegetables...
movement and an important part of the revival of London's Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
district.
Founded in 1979 by Nick Saunders and Randolph Hodgson as a cheesemaker's shop, one of their first customers was Monty Python
Monty Python
Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...
's John Cleese
John Cleese
John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report...
. Unfortunately, the new owners were still learning how to make cheese, and "had only managed yoghurt
Yoghurt
Yoghurt, yogurt or yogourt is a dairy product produced by bacterial fermentation of milk. The bacteria used to make yoghurt are known as "yoghurt cultures"...
that day, so it all rather descended into a Monty Python sketch
Cheese Shop sketch
The Cheese Shop is a well-known sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus.It appears in episode 33, "Salad Days". The script for the sketch is included in the book The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus : All the Words, Volume 2.-Origins:...
".
Despite this rocky start, the store grew from a cheesemaker into a retailer of artisanal, mostly British and Irish cheeses (including farmhouse Cheddar cheese
Cheddar cheese
Cheddar cheese is a relatively hard, yellow to off-white, and sometimes sharp-tasting cheese, produced in several countries around the world. It has its origins in the English village of Cheddar in Somerset....
and varieties such as Stinking Bishop
Stinking Bishop cheese
Stinking Bishop is a soft washed-rind cheese produced since 1972 by Charles Martell and Son at Laurel Farm, Dymock, Gloucestershire in the South West of England. It is made from the milk of Gloucester cattle, which in 1972 consisted of only 68 Gloucester breed heifers...
), spinning off the cheesemaking operation as Neal's Yard Creamery in Herefordshire
Herefordshire
Herefordshire is a historic and ceremonial county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire" NUTS 2 region. It also forms a unitary district known as the...
. The company now sells about 500 tonne
Tonne
The tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...
s of cheese a year through its store in Shorts Gardens (near Seven Dials
Seven Dials
Seven Dials is a small but well-known road junction in the West End of London in Covent Garden where seven streets converge. At the centre of the roughly-circular space is a pillar bearing six sundials, a result of the pillar being commissioned before a late stage alteration of the plans from an...
), its shop in South London
South London
South London is the southern part of London, England, United Kingdom.According to the 2011 official Boundary Commission for England definition, South London includes the London boroughs of Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Greenwich, Kingston, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Southwark, Sutton and...
's Borough Market
Borough Market
Borough Market is a wholesale and retail food market in Southwark, London, England. It is one of the largest food markets in London, and sells a large variety of foods from all over the world.-Information and History:...
, and through its exports worldwide, especially the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.