Tower of whole and various sized cut pieces of clothbound Hafod Cheddar cheese showing the golden-coloured paste

A knife and cheese board with some cut Hafod cheddar cheese, on a table with an open reading book, a glass of red wine and a wooden dining chair

Hafod

A Welsh-made Cheddar cheese with rich, layered flavours and a supple texture, Hafod is generally found to be less acidic than our other Cheddars. Rather than being clothbound, as it previously was, the cheese is now allowed to develop a natural rind; its inside reveals a warmly golden paste and the occasional blue vein.

Natural rind.

*Please note that we sell both a pasteurised and a raw milk version of this cheese. The cheese you receive will be labelled with the appropriate milk treatment.

PORTION

Smallest Piece

MINIMUM 275 g

Sixteenth

MINIMUM 555 g

Eighth

MINIMUM 1110 g

Quarter

MINIMUM 2225 g

Half

MINIMUM 4450 g

Whole

MINIMUM 8900 g

Regular price £10.00 Sale

Quantity

- +

Spend over £29.50 to receive free delivery (England, Wales & Central Scotland)

Delivery Information

Standard delivery is free to most postcodes in the UK for orders over £29.50. Click here for a list of postcodes where additional delivery charges apply.

For orders under £29.50, standard delivery is £6.00.

Collection from our London shops is free - choose Shop Collection at checkout.

Choose your preferred delivery date at checkout. As we use third party couriers (typically DPD) we cannot guarantee the arrival day of your order but we will do our best to ensure that it arrives as close as possible to your chosen date. To be sure it arrives in time, we recommend choosing a date a couple of days ahead of when you would like to eat your cheese.

Download Crib Sheet

milk type
Cow

coagulant
Animal Rennet

milk treatment
Raw or Pasteurised

location
Ceredigion, Wales

milk source
Own herd

breed
Ayrshire

season
All year

average age
10-18 Months

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Hafod is made on a Welsh dairy farm where almost all of the cows' feed and bedding is produced on the farm's land.

background

Situated near the coast in west Wales, Bwlchwernen Fawr has been home to the Holden family since the early 1970s. A leading figure in the Soil Association and more recently the Sustainable Food Trust, Patrick Holden's influence on British farming has been considerable, but it wasn't until his son Sam returned to Bwlchwernen Fawr in 2007 that they began making cheese on the farm. Hafod is Welsh for 'summer place' or 'pasture', and it's on such pasture – up the hill from the river Aeron – that the Holdens' 65-strong herd of Ayrshire cows graze when they're not sheltering for winter.

Almost 100 per cent of the herd's diet is grown on the farm's land, as is the straw for the indoor bedding: for the past four decades the family have been working toward a system where the farm is wholly self-sustaining. Although Hafod is made according to methods described in the classic 1917 manual Practical Cheddar Cheese-making, the Holdens and their head cheesemaker Tess continue to refine the make according to feedback and research. For example, a trial in 2019 revealed that no-cloth cheeses were firmer and breaking down more slowly than the clothed cheeses. Since then, all the cheeses selected for sale by Neal's Yard Dairy have been unbound.

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our work with this cheese

We visit Holden Farm Dairy three times a year, and our visits are different to our other Cheddar selections. On each trip we will take in a cheese make and taste six months' worth of batches³ over two days. In order to help guide Tess in the evolution of her methods, we taste the cheese twice: first between three and six months, to gain an insight into the results of her experimentation, and then again between six and nine months to make our selection.

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Hafod on the shelves of the cheese store at Holden Farm Dairy

Our Buyer, Bronwen, selecting cheese at Hafod

Accompaniments

Mixed Seed Crackers
£2.90

Rosebud Old Yorkshire Chutney
£4.95

Rosebud Piccalilli Chutney
£5.15

Serving Suggestions

Melt on top of buttered crumpets as an alternative to cheese on toast.

FAQs

How much cheese to buy?

As a general rule of thumb, we would recommend roughly between 100 and 150 grams per person for after dinner, and a bit more if cheese is the focus of the meal. If you are buying cheese to serve over a couple of days or as part of a buffet, it is advisable to buy a few larger pieces. This will both look better and keep better than many small bits. To help visualise weights, a good tip is to consider that a regular supermarket pat of butter weighs between 200 and 250 grams. If you are at all unsure please give us a call for some advice.

How should I store my cheese?

The best option is to keep your cheese wrapped in its paper within a box in the fridge. This will prevent the cheese from drying out and absorbing other flavours. Your cheese will arrive wrapped in waxed cheese paper, which achieves the best possible balance between maintaining humidity around the cheese and allowing it to breathe. We are happy to provide some free extra cheese paper, just search for "cheese paper" and add it to your basket. We don't recommend cling film or foil as it can cause the cheese to sweat which will negatively affect the flavour.