In the late 1990’s I was going through my mid life crisis and wondering what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I’d dreamed about running my own business before I retired and had started making cheese at home as a hobby.

There was always cheese in our house when I was growing up. I can remember being so young I had to stand on tiptoes to see over the top of the kitchen bench. In those days my Dad would make us a special treat at the weekend for breakfast: “pigs in bacon” – cubes of cheddar wrapped in bacon and fried ….and I was hooked forever! I also remember Chesdale being spread onto fresh white buttered bread – an all-time favourite lunch when I was a kid. My cheese addiction was born!

It had fascinated me while I was on my Big OE in the late 70’s too that New Zealand didn’t – and still doesn’t – add much value to its dairy products. Here we are with some of the best milk in the world, and back then you could only get a few flavours of ice cream – vanilla, boysenberry ripple, chocolate and of course where would our heritage be without hokey pokey? I remember being in Yugoslavia – quite a backwater in those days – and the range of flavours was huge. It was the same with cheese – for a long time we only had tasty, Colby and mild. The imported stuff was very exotic and hugely expensive. I had lived in New Zealand’s largest and oldest dairying area for 30 years and realised here was an opportunity.

And so the idea for Over the Moon Dairy Company took shape. We are a young, innovative business making and selling cheese in our premises on SH1, Putaruru, New Zealand. We have a wide range of facilities, and love developing and trying out new cheeses, pushing out the barriers to create many of which have not been seen before.

It has taken the best part of 7 years to research and plan the business you see today. The industry is enormously difficult and expensive to enter in New Zealand. We don’t have the level of business advice or financial support for the dairy industry after the Dairy Board was disestablished and Fonterra came into being.

I stumbled on the building known locally in Putaruru as Blues Building in May 2007. I wanted to enter our cheese in the New Zealand Cheese Awards in March 2008 so less than three months later we were making cheese in the new factory and subsequently gained three medals at the Awards that year. Since then our spectacular technical success has continued in New Zealand and also on the world stage.

I set up a training school for the specialist cheesemaking industry as well as for home cheesemakers in 2008. It’s also based on the site and Neil Willman has joined me now as my business partner in that venture. Neil brings with him 30 years of cheesemaking, cheese training, and experimentation. He helped me design and set up the factory, he designed all my cheeses, and continues to have a technical mentoring role with Over the Moon.

The Cheese School grew out of frustration that there was nothing available here in New Zealand for specialty cheesemaking training. I had to train in Australia instead and met Neil when he was managing the industry training factory for the University of Melbourne. He’s now my life partner too!

The Cheese School provides education and support for anyone interested in cheese and cheesemaking or wants to extend their knowledge of the process from start to finish. We aim to support the growth of the NZ specialist cheesemaking industry and have already seen several new companies emerge with our support over the last 2 years.

Annually now we train hundreds of keen cheesemakers. It’s really rewarding to see a class of home cheesemakers go away with their little cheese that they have made themselves, to look after it at home until its ready, and impress friends and family with what they have achieved. My favourite days are being in the factory or classroom and sharing cheesemaking skills and knowledge with people. We have had such interest from all over New Zealand that we now run courses around the country and see many international visitors at our industry courses.

Our future looks bright. We are part of a growing interest for New Zealanders; we have amazing support from the locals and a great profile onto the highway for the passing traffic. We’ll continue to develop our cheese distribution around NZ and Australia, and to grow the number and variety of courses we offer to home cheesemakers, and to the industry both here and abroad.

And because we have the facilities to pretty much make most kinds of cheese, we’ll continue to have fun with developing our range and keep our customers surprised!