The Cornish Cheese Company is a family owned and run business based on the Stansfield’s farm on Bodmin Moor and was founded in 2001. At that time milk prices had collapsed,and dairy farmers were facing a struggle to survive. Philip who had been a dairy farmer all his life, looked to diversify in the search for a new revenue stream started thinking about making cheese and noticed that there was no blue cheese being made in Cornwall. With no prior cheese experience, he went on a cheese making course and turned a former bottling plant at the end of the milking parlor into a cheese production facility. He wanted to create a sweet creamy blue that wasn't as powerful as the traditional blues and with 12 months of trial and error he developed Cornish Blue. Alongside the blue he also developed a brie, camembert and wash rind cheese but with only having one maturing room the blue mould was airborne and was affecting the quality of thewhite cheeses too much so he decided to focus on the blue.
After steady organic growth through the early 2000's Cornish Blue was crowned World Champion Cheese in 2010 which took the cheese and the business to a new level of demand and distribution which enabled the Stansfield's to expand the dairy to be able to meet demand. Since then they have built a second dairy on the farm with the aim to create the white soft cheeses that Philip originally developed back at the very start and have since launched their Cornish Brie and Cornish Camembert.
The business is very much family owned and run with four out of the five members of the Stansfeild family involved driving their ethos of creating handmade, high quality farmhouse cheeses. Located just on the edge of Bodmin Moor Knowle Farm is ideally placed for cheesemaking as the very moist climate makes for good pasture which is important for the local milk that goes into the cheese. All the cheese is still handmade, turned and packed on the farm and can be found inregular, vegetarian and organic versions. The business currently employees 14 people with half full time and the other half on a part time basis to suit the workload of the production.