Cheese and chocolate. They’re not often used in the same sentence but it could prove to be a winning recipe for the Hunter Valley’s newest foodie festival.
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The 2018 Hunter Valley Cheese & Chocolate Festival, to be held at Hope Estate on July 14, picks up where the Hunter Valley Chocolate Festival and Hunter Valley Cheese Festival left off.
Both events proved successful and then moved to Sydney, where they were re-branded.
The idea stemmed from a conversation between Hope Estate’s Michael Hope and Hunter Belle Cheese’s Jason Chesworth.
“We were talking about a festival and Michael suggested killing two birds with one stone and combining cheese and chocolate,” Chesworth said.
“I said ‘OK, but let’s keep it local’. We’ve got enough cheese in our own backyard.”
“So I called our competitors and told them it was integral to the success of this event to have Hunter Belle Cheese, Binnorie Cheese and Hunter Valley Cheese Company side by side on the one site, on the one day.
They’re on board and it’s a first for Hunter Valley cheesemakers. To me, this was the most important thing about this festival because while they are my competitors, we don’t really compete against each other. We compete against the big boys for market share. So the more people we can educate about Hunter-made cheese, and about artisan-made cheese, the better all three of us will do.
There was no grand launch. The festival quietly popped up on social media and then “blew up”, said Chesworth.
He will be running a workshop on the day matching Hunter Belle cheeses with Hope Estate beer. A full program of events will be revealed in the coming weeks.
It’s been a busy 18 months for the family owned and operated Hunter Belle Cheese. In fact, it’s been a busy four years for Jason and his wife Annie since they appeared on season five of My Kitchen Rules in 2014.
“We’ve been going pretty hardcore. We renovated a new factory up in Scone and moved most of our production from the Muswellbrook site there. We’ve pretty much doubled our capacity and we’ve got some really good young cheesemakers on board now.”
A selection of Hunter Belle cheddars is now stocked at Woolworths and business is booming.
Chesworth reckons he is working harder now than when he was milking cows on the family’s dairy farm at Denman, which they sold in 2007.
“We’ve milked cows in the Hunter Valley for over 130 years. Go back seven generations and we were milking cows right next to Williamtown airport, pretty much. Then we just moved further out west with each generation. With Hunter Belle, we want it to be something the locals are proud to take ownership of.”
For details go to www.hopeestate.com.au/cheese-and-chocolate-festival-2018
