Teagasc Moorepark - Providing Research Support for Cheese Producers

The World Cheese Awards 2008 Competition are taking place in Ireland at SHOP 2008, the food and drink retail exhibition (29th Sept – 1st Oct) in the RDS Dublin. The Teagasc Food Research Centre, Moorepark provides support for the development of Irish cheese, and are exhibiting at this food event to illustrate past and current research and innovation contributions. These include;

New Cheese Varieties – the well-established Dublinerä Cheese brand is an example of a successful new cheese variety developed by Moorepark researchers, and this has recently been followed by the launch of a probiotic-containing cheese by Pilgrim’s Choiceä.

Cheese Starter Cultures – The Teagasc Moorepark Food Research Centre in collaboration with UCC colleagues successfully developed the ‘defined strain starter’ system (lactic acid bacteria) which enabled Irish cheese manufacturers to achieve consistent quality by limiting the risk of bacteriophage attack – such attacks paralyse cheese fermentation processes and result in product downgrading. This contribution from research took place when Irish Cheddar cheese manufacture stood at 60,000 tonnes per annum – today, current annual production is over twice this value!

Competitive Manufacturing – Yield improvement and loss monitoring systems developed at Moorepark have been successfully installed in Irish cheese factories to make them highly competitive at their given scale.

Cheese flavours – Teagasc researchers are successfully harvesting the natural occurring enzymes that work during cheese ripening to generate highly concentrated cheese flavours for use as ingredients by food processes, and also for use in retail/table cheese.

New Cheese Technology Platform – Teagasc cheese technologists are currently working on new approaches which look set to revolutionise traditional cheese production processes – certainly for those cheeses that are targeted as ingredients by food manufacturers. The new cheese technology platform will see fewer cheese vats being used and whey as a traditional by-product virtually eliminated.

Support for Artisan Cheese producers – Moorepark has steadily maintained research in diversified cheeses in order to support large scale manufacturers as well as the ever-increasing number of new entrants in the Irish Farmhouse Cheese sector. An Artisan Dairy Technologist provides additional support to the sector regarding regulatory compliance and implementation of good manufacturing practices.