Fonterra took home 32 medals at the 2023 Dairy Industry Association of Australia Australian Dairy Product Awards, with Fonterra’s Stanhope site winning three gold and two silver for its products, including mozzarella, cheddar and parmesan.
The Stanhope team, in northern Victoria, also walked away with trophies for highest overall score for its cheddar cheese and the highest scoring mild/semi-matured and consumer pack cheddar cheese, which it also won last year.
These awards follow Fonterra Stanhope’s recent win at the DIAA Victoria Awards earlier this month, where it also took home gold for its cheddar cheese varieties.
Fonterra north regional operations manager Steve Taylor said Fonterra was honoured that its cheese had again be recognised as the best of the best in the industry.
“We take immense pride in the dairy products we make here at Stanhope, and this sentiment resonates with our farmers and our community,” Mr Taylor said.
“The key to crafting great cheese is simple, well cared for cows and high-quality milk sourced from our farmers in northern Victoria, coupled with the world-class dairy expertise we have here at our site.
“These awards are a fantastic recognition of this, as well as the hard work and dedication from our farmers, as well as our team at Stanhope and across Fonterra.”
Over the years, Fonterra Stanhope has won many awards for its cheese, so it is no surprise Stanhope is called the “Town of the Tastiest Cheese”.
From cheddar and parmesan to ricotta and romano, and even gouda and mozzarella, the site creates a wide range of cheese varieties.
It is also home to the number one culinary cheese brand in Australia, Perfect Italiano, which is found in almost one in two Aussie households.
The DIAA awards are a pathway to the prestigious Australian Grand Dairy Awards held later in the year.
Expert judges, renowned for their dairy product expertise, evaluate entries based on their exceptional technical merit.