Montagu Cheese is a family owned and run cheesery, where we lovingly hand craft artisan cheeses and farm butter made from recipes handed down over generations. We believe in low environmental impact farming alongside happy, grass fed and free roaming cows. As a micro-cheesery we focus on quality products rather than mass production, ensuring every product is crafted with care. By working together with regenerative farmers we are able to utilise all by-products produced where any waste is fed to free range pigs and/or composted. We care about what people eat and want to ensure a quality and pure product.

The history of Montagu Cheese probably goes back further than we’ll ever know. The plaaskaas recipes we proudly use today originate from an old Dutch recipe book that likely arrived in South Africa over a hundred years ago. When we purchased Montagu Cheese in 2012, the owner had perfected the recipes over a number of years, eventually resulting in the beautiful artisanal cheeses we still make today, we proudly continue this tradition.

Our milk comes from free range cows that have the freedom to roam and graze throughout their pasture. Happy cows result in healthier, better tasting milk.

Our products are made with love from our grass fed, pure, full cream milk this results in exceptional quality dairy products that are clean, preservative and colourant free.

Our small-batch approach to cheese and butter making results in care and passion in every one of our products. We care about quality and aren’t willing to compromise on that.

We batch pasteurise, which means we pasteurise our milk at a lower heat and for a very short time. All the cows have been tested and we get our milk tested weekly to check that there is no bad bacteria in the milk and that no cow is sick.

What do your animals eat? How much grass? How much supplemented? How was the supplemented feed grown? Is it GMO and glyphosate free? Nearly all is grazing. The cows are sometimes fed pumpkin and fruit from the farm. This is product that cant be sold. They are not fed out the bag. While milking they are fed chaffed pasture.

Is it GMO and glyphosate free? Yes

Are synthetic fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides used in the land where the animals graze? No

How regularly are the grasses ploughed/ tilled? No

Are routine antibiotics and hormones given to the animals? No however if a cow gets bad mastitis for example, she will be pulled from the herd and given a course of antibiotics (if needed). She will not be milked for at least three weeks.

Do you practice regenerative grazing (moved at least every 3 days to allow the grass to recover)? Yes and they have access to the lower parts of mountains where there is natural grazing.

How do you manage predators? We do not need to.

How do you milk your cows: Machine or by hand? Machine

How do you ensure the comfort of the cow during milking: i.e. no sores or pinching machine attachments etc.? Do you do tail docking? Comfort of the cows is very important to us and each one is checked twice a day for any sores, limping etc. We do not dock tails.

How do you manage the hygiene in the milk? Vigorous cleaning after the cows have been milk is necessary. Also any milk tanks that store milk are also cleaned before the milk goes in and after the milk is taken out. Pipes and lines are pressure cleaned. Cleaning is very important so a strict routine is always adhered too.

Is the milk pasteurised or batch pasteurised? Milk is batch pasterised but to a lower temp than commercial milk. We also sell pets milk to those who would like raw milk to feed their pets.

At what age do your cows stop producing milk and what do you do with them when they stop? This depends entirely on the cow, there is no cut off when a cow hits 10 for instance. Unfortunately older cows are slaughtered and we sell the meat in our shop. Free range grass fed beef. The odd cow has gone to a animal farm as a pet but unfortunately there are not enough places to do this.

What breed of cow do you use? Only jersey

Are you Grass-Fed certified/PGS certified or Organic certified? No, this may be something to look at in the future.

Are animals integrated with crops? Sometimes, depending on crop, time of year, weather and more.

How and when are they slaughtered?

How often are your animals impregnated and how? Once a year and we use artificial insemination at first. A bull will run with them and for those who didn’t get pregnant through AI will be covered by him.

What do you do with the resulting male calves? Male calves are kept for a certain amount of time and also grass fed. They become part pf the farms meat production.

How long do the calves remain with the cows? For the first two weeks they are with cows permanently. Thereafter they do not go out grazing with the cows during the day but stay with two older baby sitter cows. They get put with the mother after the evening milking again. This happens for at least 3 to 4 months.

Are your animals ever transported by road how is their comfort and humane treatment assured? Only if sold they will be transported by new owner.

What is the daily yield per cow on average? About 15 to 20l but it does vary considerably depending on water consumed, weather, distance they walk to milking area, how much they graze on natural grasses compared to planted grasses, how old their calf is etc etc.

OTHER QUESTIONS [I asked them to answer only the bottom 2 answers. The rest we can try to get another time, if needed.

Do you use preservatives or additives e.g. synthetic chemicals in your product/production process? No we use absolutely no synthetic chemicals in anything we do. WE are very strict with this and our products are pure. This is why we have some changes in consistency and taste that people who are not educated in this type of product often consider an issue. If your “live products” are tasting the same every week then they are not pure and definitely have something added.

Can you provide a list of ingredients and allergens (dairy, eggs, fish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans) for each product?

Allergen – milk

Ingredients – milk, dairy cultures, cream, non iodized inland pan salt in some cheese and salted butter, non iodized organic cumin seeds and black pepper corns.