A lovely afternoon at the Brown’s Farm

Cheese has been an integral and cherished part of my diet for as long as I can remember. I could always count on my mum to restock the giant wheel of gouda in our fridge, and on my dad to whip up a homely batch of Welsh rarebit — an oozy combination of strong cheddar, beer, mustard and Worcestershire sauce. And as the years have gone by, my palate has matured to appreciate even the mouldiest of cheeses. 

You can understand my excitement, then, as I arrived at the Brown’s Farm in Tigoni last weekend, for lunch and a factory tour. I owe a lot of my love for cheese to the Brown family, who have worked hard over the past 40 years to stock Kenya’s supermarkets with a wide variety of high quality cheeses. 

Sue and David Brown began experimenting with their own cheeses in their family kitchen in the 1980s. With good feedback from friends, they turned it into a business. They’ve since handed over the reins to their daughter, Delia, and today Brown’s Food Co. produces a range of natural ice creams, organic milk, baked goods, plant-based dairy products and over 40 varieties of artisan cheeses. 

For a few years now, they have invited cheese lovers to their leafy farm in Limuru for lunch and a behind-the-scenes tour of their factory. It has also been a useful way for Brown’s to test some of their new products – such as the delicious Delia’s ice cream – before releasing them to market. 

When I visited the farm last Saturday with friends, the tour was at capacity with groups of tourists and young families. After a chilled lemonade and a round of feta and coriander samosas, our engaging hostess for the afternoon, Ann Njuguna, invited us to become ‘cheese doctors for the day’ and passed round white lab coats and hair nets. On a very small scale, Ann then demonstrated the basics of cheese-making, adding a starter culture and vegetarian rennet to a tray of milk, which immediately separated into a thick curd and watery whey. 

The gouda cave

‘Quality milk gives you quality cheese’, she said. ‘We ensure that by working closely with the farmers who give us milk, and we go through 20,000 litres of it in a day.’ A contributing factor to the high price of cheese, she explained, is that only 10 per cent of the milk forms the curd, which is used in the cheese-making process. The remaining whey is given to pig farmers. Ann then led us into the very clean and busy factory nearby, where the process she demonstrated was taking place on a large and efficient scale. Behind an elevated glass screen, we watched staff make cheddar in giant metal vats below. 

From here we filtered into the room I was looking forward to seeing the most: The gouda cave. Rows of goudas of all kinds were stacked high on wooden slats either side of us, and at the far end, a cave attendant called Shadrack was massaging wheels of cheese with corn oil. This, Ann pointed out, allowed the cheese to develop a nice natural rind.

The goudas are also turned over periodically to avoid soggy bottoms as they dry. After a visit to the pungent parmesan cave, we sat back down on the shaded patio where the tour began for some wine and a three-course lunch.

We started off with a platter of rich cheese samples, including a sharp chilli chive cheddar and a satisfyingly salty aged gouda, paired with crackers and sourdough breads. Mains of tacos, pizza and salads were followed by two refreshing scoops of Delia’s ice cream.

So if you’re a fellow fan of cheese and this sounds like a brie-lliant day out, you can book a tour at www.brownsfoodco.com. For adults it’s Sh4,000 and children under the age of five receive free admission.

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