Fundão, Portugal, Nov. 19, 2024 (Lusa) - On Saturday, the Queijaria Quinta do Pomar, cheese factory in Soalheira, Fundão, saw its buttery sheep's milk cheese honoured as the best in the world and the product sold out immediately.
"The phone calls don't stop. They can't do anything else. Since Saturday, it's been pandemonium, in a good way," described the founder of Quinta do Pomar, Joaquim Duarte Alves, to Lusa. This year, he began to stay “in the background” and handed over leadership of the business to his 48-year-old son, Nuno, and his daughter-in-law, Sonia.
According to Joaquim Alves, 73, the award is already being reflected in demand.
The batch of award-winning cheese sold out immediately and there have been so many orders that the founder fears there won't be enough milk to fulfil requests until Christmas.
"We're getting orders from people who want to export to the United States, to France, to various countries, and cheese isn't made overnight. It takes 45 days to mature," emphasised Joaquim Alves.
Queijaria Quinta do Pomar's buttery sheep's milk cheese was considered the best in the world at the "World Cheese Awards 2024", among 4,786 cheeses evaluated from 47 countries.
The founder of the company, who learnt from his father and taught the trade to his son, explained that it is "a buttery "serra" type cheese, made with raw sheep's milk, curdled with thistle flower", sold at around €13.
Joaquim Alves stressed that the most crucial ingredient in producing cheese is the raw material: good milk, bought from producers in the Serra da Gardunha "within a radius of 10 to 15 kilometres".
He said you need to know how to clean the thistle, be careful with the seasoning, and not add too much thistle or salt.
This is followed by 40 to 45 days of maturing on shelves in a dark chamber, the first two weeks at a lower temperature and then at a higher temperature.
Joaquim Alves is the son of a cheese maker from Soalheira, where the Fundão Town Council organises the annual Cheese Fair.
The company was founded with his wife, Maria José, in 1983, first in their home shop. It later expanded its facilities on a plot of land behind the house and, in 2015, moved to a new unit in the Soalheira Industrial Park, in the municipality of Fundão, Castelo Branco district, where it can double its current production.
With an annual turnover of €1 million, the cheese factory has 12 employees and produces around 400 to 500 cheeses daily, 150 to 200 buttery sheep's milk cheeses.
Joaquim Alves emphasised that the award-winning product, which has already won three medals in international competitions, is not the best-selling cheese but the traditional local cheese, made from a mixture of sheep and goats.
The company's founder didn't imagine that the first time they competed in the equivalent of the sector's Oscars, they would come out with the highest distinction. They considered the award "a source of pride", the result of the work that goes into perfecting what is done.
"This award isn't just ours. It belongs to Soalheira, to Fundão, to the region's milk producers and to Portugal," the businessman emphasised to Lusa, who had been contacted by acquaintances who saw the news of the award in foreign media.
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