Governor Alexander Gusev tastes first EkoNiva hard cheese "Dürr"

The governor, representatives of the regional government and Voronezh branch of "Rosselkhozbank" accompanied the whole way of milk to cheese - from the reception point and laboratory to packaging and storage of the finished product.

The production is relatively new. In January this year, the first cheese ripening started and in April the official commissioning took place. The processing capacity of the plant is 60 tons of raw milk per day, which allows the production of 6 tons of cheese: 4 tons of semi-hard cheese and 2 tons of hard cheese. Today, the plant processes about 12 tons of raw milk per day. The investment in the construction amounted to about 1.1 billion rubles. The cheese factory employs 95 specialists, including a consultant from Germany with extensive experience in cheese production.

The guests familiarized themselves with the highly modern equipment with great interest: the cheese line was equipped by the Austrian company Bertsch, and the BamInox cheese pressing plant comes from Switzerland. Most importantly, the delegation observed the work of the cheese care robot from the Swiss company JNJ. Its functionality includes turning the cheese loaves, rubbing with brine and Brevibacteria, cleaning and loading. The plant's director, Alexei Prostyakov, explained that the robot processes 318 cheese loaves per hour with the same quality and at a certain rhythm. This allows to keep both the quality and the taste of the cheese constant.

The production plant receives raw milk suitable for cheese production from its own EkoNiva dairy cow facilities, which are located in the immediate vicinity in the Liskinsky district. The milk is selected according to 29 quality characteristics such as fat content of at least 3.5%, protein content of at least 3.3%, casein content of 2.55%.

The visit ended with a tasting. The guests tasted the semi-hard cheeses "Shchuchansky" and "Kolybelsky". A special highlight was the "Dürr" hard cheese named after founder and CEO Stefan Duerr. This belongs to the elite category of the type "mountain cheese". EkoNiva is the first company to use Brevibacteria for cheese production in Russia. They give the cheese an intense aroma and strong flavor, and also contribute to the formation of the characteristic color of the cheese rind.

The governor thanked Stefan Dürr for developing such a state-of-the-art production and tasty product. He also thanked for naming the cheeses after the villages of Liskinsky district: Shchuchye and Kolybelka. This is an additional advertisement for the region!