The Ilchester Cheese Company is a cheese company based in

Ilchester Ilchester is a village and civil parish, situated on the River Yeo or Ivel, five miles north of Yeovil, in the English county of Somerset. Originally a Roman town, and later a market town, Ilchester has a rich medieval history and was a nota ...

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

. The Ilchester brands are part of Norseland, a subsidiary of Norwegian dairy company Tine SA.

History

In 1962, Ken Seaton, a hotelier in

, England, tried combining cheese with

chives Chives, scientific name ''Allium schoenoprasum'', is a species of flowering plant in the family Amaryllidaceae that produces edible leaves and flowers. Their close relatives include the common onions, garlic, shallot, leek, scallion, and ...

, Worthington E Bitter beer and a blend of

spice A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of plants used for flavoring or as a garnish. Spice ...

s. This and other blended cheeses are manufactured and distributed by the Ilchester Cheese Company. The company received farm subsidies from the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists ...

891,256 between 2001 and 2005.

Products

Ilchester do not actually manufacture any cheese from scratch, but specialise in blending a variety of British cheeses with other ingredients, such as

beer Beer is one of the oldest and the most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from ce ...

and

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...

. Notable Ilchester cheeses include Applewood, a smoke-flavoured Cheddar cheese, and Five Counties, which is a sandwich of five layers of different English cheeses. The company also produces vegan cheeses.Vegconomist https://vegconomist.com/products-and-launches/ilchester-to-launch-vegan-blue-and-vegan-melting-mature-in-response-to-overwhelming-demand/

References

External links

Company website
Somerset cuisine Dairy products companies of the United Kingdom Companies based in Somerset British cheeses {{UK-company-stub