Oudelandse Boerenkaas

Boerenkaas translates as ‘Farmer’s cheese’ and indicates a small production, high quality cheese made with raw milk, which is rarely exported.

De Spruithove farm has been run by Mathieu and Tamara Spruit, since they took over from Mattieu’s parents in 2005. His parents ran the farm and made cheese for 40 years before training their son and his wife, who had no previous experience with either farming or cheesemaking, to take over. After six weeks, Mathieu’s parents went on holiday and left the couple to fend for themselves, but fast forward nearly 20 years and they are now award winning cheesemakers and run a successful business.

In 2011, the couple moved focus from pig and cow farming to proper cheese production so custom built a dairy that allowed them to correctly store milk and make cheese. They first focused on creating a strong and healthy crossbred herd and now have entirely crossbred Holsteiner and Fleckvieh cows, which has significantly improved herd health and animal welfare. Their animals are free range and pasture fed for most of the year and have safe barns in the winter months with closely monitored feed.

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. Boerenkaas 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 carbon footprint of free range cows is significantly lower than their barn kept counterparts as food doesn’t need to be grown for them elsewhere and so there are very few, if any, food miles involved in their feeding.