Erfgoed Stelling is a traditional farmhouse Gouda made with thermised cow’s milk just East of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. This is a small production, high quality ‘farmer’s cheese’ which is rarely exported.
The Erfgoed Stelling 705 is made by the fifth generation of the De Jong family, in Bergambacht. In 1916, Leendert Boer bought the farm for his son Gerrit and daughter in law Jacoba, and the couple began making cheese in the summer. In 1938, their daughter Gretel married and her and her husband took over the farm. They went on to have a son, Leendert de Jong, who took over from his parents in 1973. In 1975, Leen restarted cheese making on the farm, and once his own three children were born and growing up, cheese making became a year round exercise and a cheese shop on the farm was eventually opened. Leen and his wife Ineke are still on the farm helping every day (after over 50 years!) But the farm is run by their son Floor and his wife Evelyne.
It is traditional and commonplace in the Netherlands for cheeses to be aged away from the dairies in which they are produced, due to space limitations. Erfgoed Stelling is aged by Treur Kaas, a business which was launched by Evert Treur, a farmer’s son, in 1955. The company began when Evert started selling cheese sourced from local farmers, from the back of his bicycle, to the local neighbourhood and cheese shops. By the end of that same year, he was successful enough that he needed a car and small warehouse, but could only initially buy one big enough to store 100 cheeses. Demand grew and Evert was able to buy larger and larger buildings, which he converted into warehouses, that could store 16,000kg of cheese initially, then 30,000kg, 120,000kg and finally 320,000kg of cheese. In 1981, the family built their own storage and maturing unit in Woerden, large enough to store 500,000kg of cheese. In 1995, Evert turned 65 and decided to retire, passing the business onto his sons. He was awarded a medal of honour for his contribution to the industry, having worked within it for 40 years.
The cows are outdoor reared, home fed and the cheese is made on the same site as the grazing fields, so there are no food miles involved in production.
