Fonterra’s Stanhope site won two gold and five silver awards for its products — including mozzarella, ricotta and cheddar cheese — in the 2024 Dairy Industry Association of Australia dairy product awards.
The Stanhope processor is home to the brand Perfect Italiano, which also had its parmesan recognised.
Fonterra’s northern regional operations manager Steve Taylor said the company was honoured that its cheese had again be recognised.
“At Stanhope, we’ve been making cheese for more than 100 years,” Mr Taylor said.
“It’s an honour to continue this great legacy and be recognised again for our expert craft and quality milk thanks to our northern Victorian farmers.
“These awards are a fantastic recognition of our dairy know-how, our dedicated farmers and our entire team at Stanhope.”
Shayna Street is the quality manager at the Stanhope site whose key task is to ensure the company’s products are at their highest quality when they reach customers.
Dr Street has brought her biological expertise over from a former career in immunology to work in the cheese industry and said consistency was the key to her role.
“For me it is around the customers knowing what they are getting, that the cheese will work and taste just the same every single time,” Dr Street said.
“For mozzarella, we test for several attributes before selling it, including making pizzas nearly every day to make sure it looks the right colour, it melts well and most importantly that it tastes right.
“We take pride in wanting to give the customer what they are looking for.”