Milawa Cheese Company

Both schoolteachers by trade, David and Anne Brown established Milawa Cheese Company with Richard Thomas in 1988. Richard sold his share of the company to them in 1990. The Milawa site was chosen because it had good water, was between Sydney and Melbourne and close to Brown Brothers Winery.

David and Anne cemented their cheese and good food obsession whilst backpacking around Europe in the eighties. Known to give up a hotel room for "a good feed", David and Anne spent many a night in their tent pitched in a field or churchyard in France and England, warmed by the regional food and wine in their bellies.

The first cheese made at Milawa was Milawa Blue, which is made in the Gorgonzola style of cheese making. That was back in the eighties. Now Milawa Cheese Company processes 9000 to 10000 litres of cows milk a week, 4000 litres of goat's milk from 9 different suppliers and 500 litres of sheep's milk in season.