Organic Rainton Tomme Unpasteurised Farmhouse Cheese - approx 150g
A mellow golden Alpine style cheese. Rainton Tomme is semi-hard cheese with a sweet, grassy and nutty flavour. The aroma is also sweet and nutty and the texture is firm with a creamy finish. It will dry naturally with age.
This cheese is made with vegetarian rennet, raw milk from our cow with calf dairy farm and salt.
Winner of a Silver Medal at the 2018 Artisan Cheese Awards.
This cheese gets its name from Rainton Farm situated near the Galloway hills where they have been farming organically for 20 years.
All Ethical Dairy cheeses are made with vegetarian rennet.
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Ethical Dairy Story
The intensification of dairy farming has been of concern for many years, so the folks at The Ethical Dairy have been working hard to come up with a different solution.
Their big idea?
A new method of dairy farming that keeps the calves with their mothers to suckle. This ethical dairy model is based around treating the animals, the land, the environment and the people who work there with respect and kindness.
In traditional dairy farms, calves are removed from their mothers within a few hours of their birth - the stress this places on the cow is clear. So at The Ethical Dairy they wanted to find a way to keep calves with the cows and still have a financially viable farm. Put simply, they dont want to have to choose between doing whats right and staying in business.
As an organic dairy farm for more than twenty years their cows have already benefitted from some of the highest welfare standards in the UK, but they knew they could do even better. They built a new dairy, specially designed to house calves with their mothers, and trialled the full cow with calf system for the first time in 2012. It taught them a lot, but financially cost them an awful lot, too. However, the impact it made on cow contentment was staggering. All the animals were noticeably calmer and far more confident. After two to three months the calves became like teenagers, they loved playing with their pals and really only came back to mum when they wanted food!
The Ethical Dairy are determined to make theirr radical new model of dairy farming work, and by purchasing cheese from The Ethical Dairy you are helping to support it.
The Ethical Journey So Far
Since October 2016 the calves have stayed with their mothers for 5 to 6 months. They still milk them in that period, but only once a day. They are still at the early stages of The Ethical Dairy project, but their new approach to dairy farming has already led to huge reductions in the use of antibiotics, increases in biodiversity and healthier, happier cows.
Compared to an average dairy farm, already The Ethical Dairy has:
- Cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than half
- Reduced energy use by more than half
- Cut antibiotic use by 90%
- Cut agro-chemical use by 90%
- Doubled the productive life of cows
- Increased our farm biodiversity five-fold
- Increased the net amount of food in our food system by 80%
- Exceeded the highest standards of animal welfare
We hope you enjoy their cheese and we thank you for your support of The Ethical Dairy.
