From Quakers to cheese-makers: Cashel Blue matures nicely

Cashel Blue helped revive the Irish artisan cheese industry. The company behind Ireland’s only blue cheese has just secured major export orders to Canada and Australia. And it’s success harks back to an extraordinary business tradition of a handful of Quaker families behind firms including Jacobs to Bewleys here, plus Cadburys, Barclays, Lloyds and Rowntree in Britain. Cashel Blue was set up by the Grubb family of Quaker heritage, whose daughter Sarah Furno tells us all about it.

Cashel Blue co-owner Sarah Furno with her new Aldi Christmas Selection offering.

What's Cashel Blue's origin story?

 My father had a dairy herd in the late 70s and then the market fell out of milk production. My mum was a chef and she said well why don't we do something with the milk ourselves rather than sell it to the dairy?

There were a few people making cheese around the country but nobody making blue cheese and mum said I'm going to create some with our milk.

What’s the challenge in making blue cheese?

Obviously, it's the blue part! It’s like the spice. And it was a long journey! (to get it right).

It was a huge challenge because at the time you couldn't look up blue cheese recipe on Google. So Cashel Blue is made from a sense or feeling, not from a recipe.

It's a creation that's unique to our family unlike blue cheeses in France which may be a recipe from a region. And that's the challenge.

What did your parents teach you about money? Did they pass on the Quaker tradition?

I went through Quaker schooling in Waterford, but am not a practising Quaker, although I have huge respect for the ethos. The Quaker cultural heritage has influenced our outlook… traditionally Quakers were very earnest and some very puritanical. Indeed our own branch of the family were thrown out for carousing i.e playing the piano on a Sunday! 

 Why are Quakers so prominent in business?

1. Their social conscience. It is in the very ethos of Quakerism to “do good acts” , for example there was “the Quaker cow” in the community to ensure milk in the 1700s for those who didn’t have a drop to nourish their families. 

2. Quakers were all well educated - both men and women - in the earliest examples of inclusivity in education in Ireland. There was the skillset of maths, English etc, with which to establish business.

3. Quakers were not allowed to go to third level (and excluded from many professions). Instead they were encouraged to be productive and work in industry, provide employment etc.

Has the Quaker tradition influenced how Cashel Blue was run?

Our development has been highly influenced by Quakerism. We never extended ourselves in such a manner that, should something go wrong, we could not have paid back our debts, and taken other people down with us. Socially, my parents Jane and Louis Grubb, wanted not only to provide a future for themselves but also stable rural employment. 

Historically our families were millers, employing close on 200 people in local Clonmel, where my own name sake Sarah Grubb ran the mills. I do believe having a heritage of successful food business, influenced my father Louis Grubb in a sub-conscious way. 

Artisan cheese-making is being revived in Ireland. But what happened to it before – and how did Irish cheese become so lacking in diversity and, some might say, flavour?

In France there are 300 types of cheese and they have a huge diversity in a regionalization. In Ireland, we have such a strong cooperative movement that ensures the majority of dairy products are made in a very efficient way. The cooperatives’ primary purpose is just to use it and the easiest way to do that is to mass produce. Less than 1% of us (cheese-makers) are craft producers. It takes a small craft producer to take on the more complex blue cheeses.

Why does artisan cheese taste better?

We're a family business. We're accountable to ourselves. We love ageing cheese and doing it the slow way, the patient way so we don't take shortcuts by waxing it and that means you've got a more subtle flavour. What surprises people is the texture of Cashel Blue.

What distinguishes Irish cheese?

Geography plays into flavor so we're just on the edge of the Golden Vale so the grass is really sweet and lush. I have a French cheesemaker working with me and she said: “Wow, this milk is incredible.”

What was your first job?

Working in the wine trade.

And your best investment?

I bought some really good Bordeaux back then. I was going to drink it myself but instead  I've been selling it off little by little and buying cheaper wines to enjoy. It's been a really good long-term investment.

What would you do if you were the new finance minister?

I would bring down the 13% VAT on the hospitality sector to 11%. There's so much employment in this industry and it's so important to the social fabric of Ireland. I think we could look at the bigger social role that hospitality plays.

How did you react to the election of Donald Trump, who threatens to penalise US imports - such as cheese?

I've tried to be pragmatic and not to be sensational (about the election of Donald Trump). I was reading an article in the New York Times that said “stop pretending this isn’t real.” This is real. This is what a lot of people wanted. Stop thinking this was just a few people. It was the popular vote.”

 Are you worried about the threat of a new tariff regime?

It's easy to say that Trump will jump on the bandwagon of isolationism and of course I'm concerned. But we've been there before and we'll be there again. And there's no reason the Democrats wouldn't bring in tariffs either. There's a big deficit in the US.” We’ve grown at 10% before and we had challenges with staff. We’re happy with 2% growth. Growing too fast wouldn’t be food for people or quality,” she says.

Sarah also reveals that Cashel Farmhouse Cheeses has also just sealed lucrative export deals with Sobeys and Woolworths, the biggest supermarket/grocery chains in Canada and Australia respectively. And Sarah has developed a new cheese for the Aldi’s Christmas selection, topped with sticky onion jam and carmelised pecan and cranberries.

 So regardless of what The Donald does with tariffs, the business of making Cashel Blue is maturing nicely – just like their cheeses.