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Bliss from Britain
Celebrating British Artisans
Actually, our products have been here for over 20 years, but we’ve kept it pretty quiet. Because you know, we Brits are the reserved type. However, now that more of our range is available here in the USA, and with wider distribution, we want to shout it from the rooftops: The Fine Cheese Co. is your source for the finest in British artisan cheeses, Toasts, crackers, cookies, and accompaniments, and we are here to stay.
our products
The Fine Cheese Co. USA range includes more than three dozen artisan British cheeses, from Cheddar to Brie-style to blue. We also offer crackers and cookies produced by our sister company, Artisan Biscuits, and chutneys, each matched to a particular style of cheese. Together these products represent the best of British food tradition, craftsmanship, and ingenuity, and we are proud to bring them to our friends in the USA.
Our Crackers and Toasts
Because we love cheese, we didn’t want it to be lonely. So we bought a long-established bakery to produce our signature crackers and toasts. We were the first to link specific crackers with specific cheeses, and as far as we know, we are the only artisanal cheese company with its own bakery.
PArtners For Cheese
If you love cheese, you will care as much as we do about what goes with it. Cheese loves something sweet, so our chutneys all have a sweeter note, and they each pair with specific cheeses for a perfect match.
artisan cheese from britain
By ‘artisan’ we mean cheeses made predominantly by small producers using traditional methods, often with the milk from their own herd. We work directly with these cheesemakers, collecting the cheeses from their farms and aging them in our own caves.
Elegant & English Cookies
We call them biscuits, to you they are cookies, but whatever you call them, they are made by hand in our 100-year-old bakery in Ashbourne, a small town in the Derbyshire Dales. We use the best natural ingredients that we can find, including British butter and heap them generously.
First in fine for 30 years.
We are an affineur, wholesaler, retailer and exporter of artisan British cheeses, most of which are unpasteurized and all of which are traditionally made.
30 years ago, our founder, Ann-Marie Dyas opened our first store in the city of Bath, UK, a World Heritage site, close to the Cotswolds but in Somerset, the home of Cheddar.
From the beginning, cheese was at the heart of our business. That is why we are called The Fine Cheese Co., and we have always been selectors and affineurs of the best artisanal British and European cheese. At the outset, we had a motto that remains true to this day: “Seek out the best, and, when you’ve found it, keep looking”. And because of our obsession with quality, over time our business has grown to over 60 countries—including the USA, where we have been present for some 20 years.
Cheese experts
From our start three decades ago, we have nurtured and supported the cream of British cheesemakers while refining our skills in selecting and aging their cheeses, so that we can bring these artisan products to the market at peak quality and flavor. We are also devoted to education, sharing our expertise with retailers and providing resources for consumers to learn more about British artisan cheese. We are proud to be a patron of the Academy of Cheese and a sponsor of the World Cheese Awards.
The Fine Cheese Co. Team at Bath Soft Cheese
Selecting and Maturing Artisan British Cheese
We work very closely with the people who make the cheese that we sell. We have known some of them for as many as thirty years and the strength and depth of our partnership continue to grow.
Artisan cheese is unlike other cheese, in that quality not consistency is the paramount consideration. What do we mean by this? Well, artisan cheese varies from season to season and even from day to day.
There are so many variables that result in different flavors and textures in the finished cheese, and this is never more apparent than during our selecting trips.
We visit the farms on a frequent basis to taste a great number of batches with the cheesemakers. Together we pinpoint the cheeses that excite us, in that they encapsulate everything that we love about a particular cheese. Mostly, we will find similar characteristics coming through again and again, but at different degrees of intensity. One day it may be a refreshing grassy tone that really grabs us, while at other times, deeper more savory flavors may win the day. But always we pick the cheeses that are simply the best expression of the cheesemaker's milk and art on that day. These cheeses are then set aside specifically for us and for our customers.
Selection is only the beginning. Once the cheeses reach our maturing rooms, it is our duty and responsibility to continue to care for them. We have rooms with different conditions, some with wooden shelving and others with stainless steel racks. We dial up or down the temperature and adjust the humidity and air-flow to ensure that our cheeses enjoy their stay with us before embarking on their onward journey to our customers. In this way, we can ensure that you have access to the finest British artisan cheese.
Ruth Raskin, Head of Cheese Quality and Care