When did the farm start up ?

Established on 18 hectares in Saint - Léger de Vouzance (03), in a hamlet called “Les Gachons”, the farm was created in 1988. It was initially a small abandoned farm, surrounded by 8 hectares of pasture. We converted the barn into a dairy and we built up the goat herd, which only counted forty head at the time.

How did it develop ?

We build several buildings reserved for the cheese making, storage and hay-drying, and extended the goat herd. In the beginning, milk production did not exceed 29,000 litres a year, compared to close to 120,000 litres today. Our herd now counts 130 goats, from the excellent chamois mountain breed, which has good quality milk with 32% protein content and 36% butter content. We are trying to expand our line with new formats and specialties.

How do you work ?

From November to March, the goats are in pens and then they are put to graze.  They are given a daily feed of about 5 kg of fresh hay. They have four meals a day, then two during milking (7.30 am and 7.30 pm) and two spread between 12 noon and 2.30 pm. We have a milking bay to milk ten goats at a time. A good goat gives about 7 litres of milk a day. When a goat gives birth - once a year with a gestation of five months – we milk her by hand and give the milk to the kid because it cannot be made into cheese. We have milk throughout the year by ‘de-seasoning’ half the herd. Our herd gives us 158 kids a year, which is a good average fertility rate. We keep about thirty young she-goats and three or four billy-goats to maintain the herd. Occasionally, we sell a few young she-goats to other farmers. The remainder goes to produce meat, particularly for Italy, a country where kid is popular. Our production of goat’s cheese is done at the farm under reasoned agriculture principles.The cheeses are made in the morning. The milk collected is sent from the goat farm to the dairy via a “milk-duct” to avoid any handling and contamination. We refrigerate the evening milking and add the morning milking to it before culturing it with our whey and we curdle it at 18°C in 20-litre buckets. After curdling for 24 hours, we ladle the curds into moulds the next day. The cheeses are then turned twice a day, except for the pyramids. The yield varies depending on the amount of milk (250 litres a day in winter, against 450 litres in spring.)

What are you products?

Our line includes about a dozen listed products. We have a Charolais, a local goat cheese weighing 300 g with a cylindrical shape, Crottin, a pyramid matured in wood ash like Valençay, a wood ash matured log, a small brick, a small round, the Gachonnais, the Fleuron (square) and the Fleur de Chèvre (oval), both salted with rock salt and made to order for wholesalers. We also produce other types of goat cheese like the 15g appetizer portions, dry to semi-dry, matured for 15 to 20 days. Our cheeses are sold fresh or matured. They come in different weights, sizes, dryness and maturing. A Charolais matures slowly over several months, whereas a Crottin is quite dry after one month. We make Charolais when we have surplus milk because it stores well. It sells well because it is mild, distinctive and refined, just as the Fleuron, the small round and the Gachonnais do well because of the soft texture, and the wood ash cheese because of its creaminess. Charolais is our flagship cheese, representing 30% of production. Goat’s cheese is one of the treasures of our gastronomy.

What do you think of Rungis Market ?

We’ve been working at Rungis since 1991 and over half of our production is sold there, including cheeses produced to order for certain wholesalers. This market has really developed and we can now sell abroad, particularly to Japan.