Tag: goat cheese

Posted on by

Jannei is – joining with our community Central West- to Promote our Western District in the 2026 RAS EASTER SHOW. IT’S show time!

Jannei is sending down our fresh pressed curd-the- Buche Noir to the 2026 RAS EASTER SHOW DISTRICT DISPLAY. This is where all the districts of NSW showcase their harvest for the awards and display- in the main pavilion. Always a popular display with the public because it’s all about getting together as communities.

Jannie’s Buche Noir is a lovely creamy fresh pressed cheese. The Buche Noir stores in the fridge for two months. Our customers however mostly say- ” It’s not going to last that long!” The Buche Noir is available online and at Jannei cellar door and sales. Also seek it out at Pennys Cheese Shop at Potts Point.

Thanks to the organisers-

A thanks goes to Stuart Muller who will be runs around gathering stock every year. Then the team doing lots of organising to make this special event and a success. Also praying that rain so badly needed, brings in a good display. OOps answered!

2026 RAS EASTER SHOW-ALL OUR ENTRIES

Jannei is also entering four products in the Dairy and Cheese main dairy judging show. 2026 RAS EASTER SHOW here we go again! Jannei cheese is entered in the Non-Bovine Dairy Awards Section. This year we have sent our Raw Milk, Miette, Lidsdale and Fresh Curd for the 2026 RAS judging. The judging is this weekend in fact and winners are announced later in February online and showcased in March at the 2026 RAS EASTER SHOW.

Dairy Awards 2026 RAS

The Dairy Awards are professionally judged, often by international Judges. The show society committee for this event does an excellent job. This is where we have trialed a lot of our cheese styles over the last 30 years as small batch Artisan Cheesemakers. We are entered this year as always in the non-bovine awards section. Which can at times be quite a feat to win, when the non-bovine awards include any mixes of milk with cow’s milk, as well as all the animal breeds.

NON-BOVINE VARIETY WHAT FUN?

Goat Milk, Camel Milk, Sheep Milk and Buffalo Milk are all the standard non-Bovine. We always wonder what will turn up next though. Totally a mixed bag of cheese and dairy when you add all the styles made from these milks -producers are creating so many varied dairy products often to be judged together. What fun!

GOING TO THE RAS 2026 SHOW?-

We hope you enjoy this year’s show everyone. Whatever attracts you there we pray it’s a safe and encouraging time for you and a great community gathering for the 2026 RAS SHOW. We are one country with people from many different backgrounds. We all call Australia HOME so let’s keep that in the forefront of our minds. Go see the district displays and please vote for the WESTERN DISTRICTS! Jannei at 2026 RAS SHOW TIME -YEH!

20250525_091235[1]Download

A great Cheese board Cheese the Jannei Buche Noir.

Posted on by

Farm Fresh-JANNEI Signature -Summer Artisan Goat cheese in a Box-

$150.00

Celebrate this Christmas or any festive occasion with our Jannei Artisan Cheese on the menu. We will send a selection of our amazing fresh hand made cheese to you door- you can purchase you crackers – all in the box will be farm made – added preserves for a surprise – Janette makes wonderful gourmet treats to go with our cheese that are always on the move with farm produce –

In the pack you will receive cheese to the value of your purchase and more – We will pack from our range – (not all )Buche Noir 150gm and Buche Blanc 150gm, a Fresh 200 gm Curd ,  Bent Back, Prairie Cream , Chevrotin- Miette and a marinated Jannei fetta. Choose Sundried Tomato, Chilli or Mountain Valley Herb.  Ricotta , plain fetta – specify any you prefer.

Neils Prairie Cream – a camembert style cheese and available at this time of year and also his semi hard waxed and aged chevrotin. The Lidsdale has fantastic long pallet flavour now at 12mths old.
You can write in the notes if you have preferences  in style – matured or fresh-

Guaranteed you will have plenty of delicious cheese treats for Christmas.

Delivery will be added as normal as you checkout, cost depending on your destination. Farm pick-up can be ticked and no freight is charged. You need to write in the notes the day you will pick up.
We are open Thursday to Saturday and Monday .

Pick the marinated flavoured cheese you want in the notes if you have a preference.

Please note if we fall short of any product we will replace it with an equivalent product it will be a great surprise, all Jannei products stand out in taste and quality.
Preserves -At present we have Red Pepper jelly- mild heat ; Caramelised Onion,;Quince Paste ; Grape Syrup and farm Strawberry Jam.  Onion and capsicum relish  and Farm vegetable relish .

You can pre -order and request a delivery date . This will help with our making and stocking for Christmas or any delivery date!

Posted on by

From farm to table, each bite of our award-winning goat cheese tells a story of dedication, craftsmanship, and love for our herd. 🐐✨ Explore the rich flavors of our semi-hard aged cheese and discover why we’ve won over 50 awards, including a National Champion title! 🧀🍷 Order online now to experience artisanal excellence, delivered to your door.

Although its winter Jannei has some special treats in store for ordering. Our marinated cheese range of mixed herb, chili and sundried tomato jarred cheese. All are a winter treat in warm salads and topping pastries and pizza- so order now before they run out. We have a special price on our mixed herb -Mountain Valley . Another cheese to look into is the Lidsdale – our heritage cheese . This cheese is now 7 – 9 months old . A semi -hard cheese this cheese is entirely unique to Jannei goat dairy. Developed flavors , a 100% goat milk cheese. It goes with sweet or savory dishes. it is a stand out on a cheese platter with the wine of choice. Enjoy a cozy winter warming fire with a Jannei cheese or tow. -Spoil yourself and guests with Jannei cheese as a high end attraction to spoil their guests.

Posted on by

Marinated Goat’s Cheese now avaliable through our website!

Jannei Creamy Fetta, spelt with two t’s, is a beautiful summer cheese. Handmade and packed on farm- these marinated jars of fetta goat milk cheese, are a Farmers Market favourite.

We make our goat milk feta in summer. Our marinated goat milk cheese, aims to capture the same charm as finding us at a market. Each jar is carefully filled to the brim with handmade labels — perfect for gifting at any time of year.

These days, Jannei is at three markets, but we’re proud to remember our beginnings. We were at Eveleigh Markets in its first year — winter 2010 — and that year it won Best Market in Sydney. Before that, we were at Pyrmont Farmers Market from 1998 until 2007. In 2007, we won seven awards at the Royal Easter Show, and soon after, Neil had open-heart surgery. Amazingly, he’s still here, making outstanding cheese every day.

Over the years, getting to markets has become more challenging. Between the setup, travel, market fees, and petrol, you have to sell a lot just to cover costs.

At Jannei, we’re a small farm making small batches of all our products. Everything we make starts with our farm-harvested raw goat milk, and our marinated cheeses are no exception. Our focus is on high-quality food in every package or jar — no shortcuts, no preservatives, no stale products, and no cheap fillers. You can taste the care in every bite.

The Product

Marinated Goats Cheese Fetta-
Is a semi hard goats milk cheese with a creamy lingering back palette flavour  . These fresh subtle favours entice you back for more .  Made on farm during  summer months . Fetta is stored in a 10% salt brine and packed from these bulk containers, into smaller units.
It is a A GM free Product.
Ingredients: Pasteurised Goats Fetta cheese, Sunflower oil, Locally grown Extra Virgin Olive Oil,   Roasted Garlic, herbs and seasonings-non animal rennet and cultures.
 
Store at 5 degrees-CELCIUS
NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
SERVING SIZE 60gm   SERVINGS PER PACK 5
AVERAGE                                   PER 10GM                                      PER100GM
ENERGY                                      104kj                                                1038kj
PROTEIN                                    1-GM                                                  10.3GM
FAT TOTAL                                  1.9GM                                               19GM
-saturated                                    1.3GM                                              13.3GM
CARBOHYDRATE
TOTAL                                            0.9GM                                                9.4GM
SUGARS                                         0.2GM                                                1.9GM
SODIUM                                         11MG                                                 111MG: Marinated Goat’s Cheese now avaliable through our website!

Posted on by

Jannei goes to Melbourne!!!

After much preparation and arrangements getting cheese shipped out for delivery to the Australian Specialty Cheese Awards judging at Werribee for Friday the 24th of August and to the Cheese Show public tasting at Ormond Hall near Prahran Melbourne for the 25th August Neil and I (Janette) headed off to Melbourne for a three day stint !

We left frost and ice bitten Lidsdale ,Tim to care for the kidding goats and the Factory dormant awaiting our return . I had spent time preparing flyers and business cards and had used the” Wow” word as a prominent theme for the flyer . It was ironic because after the three days it was a WOW time we had…(and I will up date the flyer with more Wows ha!)

We had wow fun as we learnt to navigate the Tram, Bus and Train System with our Myki Cards sooo… exiting , and on a cheese level with another achievement for the Buche Noir which made for such a moral boost and excitement at the wards dinner in Fitzroy!

We stayed in a lovely apartment , had some date dinners together , did some valuable marketing talking to retail outlets, attended the Awards Dinner and had some well timed help from close family at a massively packed cheese show in which we where able to clear out most of the stock we took.

Gracing our stall apart from our super new pull up sign designed by Nick, our web site manager ,was our most recent trophy of the night before! We entered 7 cheese styles of which two achieved Gold awards in the soft curd section, the fresh curd and the Noir. The judges take the top 6 or so cheese in each category and give them a point score . This means the majority of cheese entered don’t know how they went at all unless they get a high score and even then it’s only if you get gold or win the section that you find out how you went.
As very small cheese makers we always find this difficult because we need to know how we are grading to be able to improve .

Luck has had it though that we do very well with our soft cheese. We had others in the hard cooked section, the marinated section, the textured section and the white mould section. People tasting on the Saturday loved our cheddar , agreed the fetta was a solid lower salt healthy cheese, devoured all the white moulds and approved of the exquisite curd and so on!
We pulled out cheese from sale stock to go down as we had no surplus at this time, to take, as it’s the end of winter and goats are only just kidding,, but it was well worth it!

We learnt a lot on the public cheese tasting day and while travelling around Melbourne . Its a great place because the small deli is still in demand and there we found lots of cheese and checked out what everyone else in our small industry of -farm made cheeses was doing . Our new slogan at the show on our sign was; “Quality from our farm to your home”! Which we hope you will agree it is. We spoke to business owners who where very keen to take on our cheese so I have lots of follow up to get on with! We found that Jannei still had what it takes and its given us that power boost we need, as being so small it often feels like you are up against too much competition.

Hope you enjoy the pictures , our news update and our cheese..
Cheers from Janette at Jannei Goat Dairy.

To read the full report click here and download the pdf!

Posted on by

SYDNEY CHEESE AWARDS October 9, 2010 Gold Medal Winners

In recent news all three of our White mold cheese have now won a Gold at a cheese show! Jannei’s Miette took out he gold in Category 3 – Fresh Curd Matured at the Sydney Cheese Awards.

here’s a link to the website

Also our Bent Back Chèvre, Prairie Cream and Buche Noir all received gold at Melbourne Cheese Show.

Posted on by

A visit to Jannei Goat dairy

WE’RE LATE. It’s a grey rainy day in November as we head west along the Great Western Highway past Lithgow heading for Jannei Goat Dairy at Lidsdale. However all is well when we do eventually arrive at Jannei, as Neil and Janette Watson are too busy packing up their cheeses for the following day’s Pyrmont Growers Market in Sydney to be concerned about our late arrival.
The Watsons started their cheese making here in 1995 when Neil decided he wanted a change from teaching agricultural science at a school in Portland. When looking for an alternative income, it’s not surprising that Neil would be thinking milk. He grew up on a dairy farm in that wonderful, rain-blessed dairying country around Wauchope on the NSW central coast.
Initially they intended to sell their fresh goat milk into the Sydney market but found this was not profitable in the volumes they could produce. So Janette supported Neil’s experiments with cheese making.
He started with hard cheeses in 1996, but soon found that what his customers in Sydney really wanted was fresh curd. Just about the only goat curd available in Sydney at the time was coming from Gabriel Kervella in Western Australia. So local chefs and retailers were delighted to have a truly local product. From this base product, Neil has added many award winning cheeses such as their Bent Back Chev, Buche noir and Chevrotin.
Cheese making takes place six days a week and while Neil is busy with the curd, Janette uses her background in advertising and design to market their cheeses to an ever-increasing number of customers.
Jannei milks around eighty goats (mostly Saanen) from a herd of one hundred producing about 130kg of cheese a week. Ninety percent of this is delivered weekly into the Sydney market where Simon Johnson is the main distributor.
Diet for the goats is very important to Neil who goes to great lengths to ensure that every goat in the herd is in peak condition, thus ensuring the highest quality milk for cheese making.
In June 2007 Neil had major heart surgery. During his hospitalisation and subsequent recovery Janette took responsibility for all aspects of the business, including the cheese making. So now they often work together in the cheese making room. The weekly trips Janette makes to the Growers Markets she says are hard work. With the long travel time, some days are barely profitable. Jannette says she looks past the sales and considers it important to be there, as it is their only regular marketing exercise.
If you would like to visit the dairy for a tasting or purchases of their cheese, phone first to check that either Neil or Janette are available. Blessed are the cheese makers.

article by – RF. Russell Smith, www.regionalfood.com.au

Posted on by

Making goat cheese

Quote from website:
“SkillsOne catches up with a couple who have turned their passion for life on the land into an award-winning gourmet goat cheese business.

Neil and Janette Watson decided to follow their dream of owning a farm in the country and opened a goat farm in 1995.

Neil then used the knowledge he learned through a rural science degree to teach himself how to make cheese and dairy products from the goats’ milk. They now have a lucrative gourmet business.”

Check out the video here