We have been telling our story to everyone who visits us for years. The origins lie with Henri and his wife Riet who took a cheese-making course together because they wanted to start producing cheese with the milk from their own cows. They started making farmhouse cheeses for themselves and people in the neighbourhood. Until a group of tourists in a tour bus visited the farm and asked if they could watch the cheese-making process. Needless to say, all those tourists took home cheese. And the buses kept coming back for that delicious authentic cheese with that good story.
Production was scaled up and cheeses with herbs were added to the range. When this too proved successful, Henri decided he also wanted to make Gouda-style cheese with goat's milk. And again, it was a success. More and more people visited the farm and bought this oh-so-tasty Dutch cheese fresh from farmer Henri Willig to take home as a souvenir.
Now, half a century on, we have 2 cheese dairies in Katwoude and Heerenveen, 3 cheese farms, a restaurant with shop and canal boat in Giethoorn and more than 30 luxury cheese gift shops in beautiful locations in the Netherlands, Germany and Austria. And of course, we must not forget the webshop.
To provide all these locations with enough cheese for all visitors, we work together with 40 farmers who, in addition to our own milk, supply milk for production. We now make more than 100 flavour varieties, using milk from cows, goats and sheep.&with this, we produce a total of around 7 million kilos of cheese per year.
Because we work with so much milk and different types of milk, it sometimes happens that a mistake is made. This is how we experienced that two different types of milk were accidentally used to make a cheese. This was not the intention but with skilled cheese makers, strict controls and a good recipe, these ended up being very special and very tasty cheeses that were only available for a short period of time. They were greatly appreciated by many customers and employees. Because reproducing these "happy accidents" proved almost impossible.
Thanks to this experience, we started with "limited editions" and the special Henri's Hero cheeses. These temporary special cheeses, we alternate per season. This allows us to surprise our visitors and we always have a nice story to tell. Some of these limited editions are so popular that they come back every year or at least are wanted back. An example is the Aspergekaas, a beautiful cheese that is of course available in our shops and webshop during the asparagus season. Changing our range regularly gives us a perfect opportunity to develop and test new flavours with our visitors.
We are far from finished with the creativity and ideas we have for new surprising flavours and flavour combinations! So be sure to keep following us on social media such as our instagram: Henri Willig Cheese or of course on our website where you can sign up for the newsletter. This way, you will always be informed about interesting news and fun events.
Check out Henri Willig's delicious recipes below.
Popping Spring Cheese board The happiest season of the year. Manon from @courgetticonfetti made another beautiful, colourful spring cheeseboard. The cheeses you see on the board: Lavender cheese Green pesto cheese Smoked goat's cheese Sublime old sheep's cheese She also made 3 simple recipes and further filled the shelf with things you can put directly on it. Incredibly easy, but it looks great! The extra things on the shelf: Spicy mustard Chef's selection Roasted tomato dip Strawberries Olives Mandarin Radishes Nectarine Pistachios The 3 simple recipes: - Egg muffins with smoked goat's cheese Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Grate 50 g smoked goat cheese and keep half of it aside. Mix the other half of the cheese with 4 eggs, 6 sun-dried tomatoes (chopped), 10 olives (sliced), 1 pressed clove of garlic, 1 tsp Italian herbs and a pinch of salt in a bowl and mix well. Grease a muffin tin (for 6 pieces) and divide the batter in it. Sprinkle the rest of the grated cheese over the top. Put them in the oven for 20 minutes. - Muhammara Mix 80g roasted paprika, 80g walnuts, 1 clove garlic, 1/2 tsp paprika, 1/2 tsp cumin, a pinch of cinnamon, 30ml olive oil and 20g pomegranate seeds in your mincer to make a tapenade. - Beetroot goat cheese Blend 1 beetroot and 200 g goat cheese until smooth. Present this explosion of colour on the table and enjoy!
A tasty spicy cheese board! Cut the baguette into very thin slices. Mix 3 tablespoons of peanut oil with the grated garlic clove, add some salt. Coat the baguette slices with this and bake crispy in the oven. Assume about 6 minutes per side under the grill. It can also be done on hot air at 200 degrees. But be careful because they can burn quickly. In the meantime, cut the cheese into strips and cubes and prepare the cheese board nicely. Take a slice of serrano ham and a slice of goat cheese with truffle put this on the sandwich. Grate some of the red chilli cheese, chop 10 Taggia olives and mix together. Cut the puff pastry slices into 4 equal strands. Sprinkle the cheese-olive mixture on top and sprinkle with the sesame seeds. Bake at 200 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes in the oven. garnish with the tomatoes, grapes and remaining olives And enjoy this delicious snack, a spicy cheese board! Evelien from @gezelligerecepten, thank you for this beautiful and above all tasty cheese board!