The historic British cheese facing the threat of extinction
Stilton faces a battle for relevance as Generation Z shuns speciality cheeses, an award-winning British dairy has said.
Bill Mathieson, managing director of Long Clawson Dairy in Leicestershire, said makers of stilton were struggling to appeal to younger people.
He said: “I think it’s a bit of reluctance from younger shoppers. We’ve got a profile of consumers who the bulk of them would be 50-plus. That’s the big challenge.
“My best way to describe it is, if you imagine a leaky bucket, we’ve probably got more people falling out the bottom at the moment than we’re putting in the top.”
The number of companies making stilton has declined over the last decade as producers grapple with the question of how to make strong cheeses appeal to the TikTok generation.
Arla, the UK’s biggest dairy company, announced this year that it planned to stop production at its 244-year-old Tuxford & Tebbutt Creamery in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, after failing to find a buyer, blaming a decline in demand for specialty cheese.
Mr Mathieson said: “If you go back 10 years, there would probably have been about eight stilton dairies operating and producing stilton.
“[Tuxford & Tebbutt] could close by the end of the year. With that, you will be down to four. It highlights the challenge that the dairies are facing.”
In an attempt to revive interest, Long Clawson has begun working with influencers and the celebrity chef Marco Pierre White to show how it can be used in a different context. The company even drafted in a mixologist to create cocktails utilising the cheese as an ingredient.
Mr Mathieson said: “I think one of the ways that we can [revive Stilton] is by making it present in things like ready meals, so they have an exposure to stilton.
“I’d love to see stilton on a Domino’s pizza.”
Long Clawson Dairy has made stilton near Melton Mowbray for over a century. As well as stilton, it makes blue and red Leicester cheeses. Its 1912 blue stilton was this year named supreme champion cheese at the International Cheese and Dairy Awards.
The cheese, known for its distinct “marbled” look and rich taste, is geographically protected and can only be made in Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire using local milk.
Mr Mathieson added that a more casual approach to Christmas meals and other family celebrations over recent years had also contributed to flagging demand.
He said: “Generally speaking, probably about 70pc of all stilton is eaten on a cheese board and only about 20pc of households ever now have a cheese board. So it’s kind of a declining occasion.
“If you’re not exposed to a cheese board as a younger consumer, then the likelihood is you’re not necessarily going to have a cheese board as you’re getting older.
“If I think back to my grandparents, we had a very formal dinner, and then the cheese would have come out and then probably the port after.”
But appealing to Generation Z is not the only quandary faced by cheese makers. As demand has fallen, soaring wage costs over recent years have heaped pressure on manufacturers of dairy produce.
“Some of the increases we’ve seen in minimum wage and national living wage over recent times ... that puts a huge cost into our business. If we’re not able to recover that in terms of going out to customers, it’s just squeezing the margin of ourselves or other specialist cheese makers.”
He added post-Brexit red tape and a row between Britain and Canada over cheese imports had made exporting its products harder too.
However, Mr Mathieson insisted it was “not all doom and gloom” for cheese makers, pointing to the company’s recent win.
He said: “It’s a bit like us winning an Oscar in cheese.”