Hafod

Hafod

A Welsh-made Cheddar cheese with rich, layered flavours and a supple texture, its interior reveals a warmly golden paste and the occasional blue vein.

Natural larded 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
Regular price £12.90
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  • Spend over £39.50 to receive free delivery (England, Wales & Central Scotland)

Standard delivery is free to most postcodes in the UK for orders over £39.50. Click here for a list of postcodes where additional delivery charges apply.

For orders under £39.50, standard delivery is £8.00.

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 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. 

milk type
Cow

ingredients
Raw or Pasteurised Cow's MILK, Salt, Cheese Cultures, Animal Rennet, Matured with Lard

coagulant
Animal Rennet

milk treatment
Raw or Pasteurised

location
Ceredigion, Wales

milk source
Own herd

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milk type
Cow

ingredients
Raw or Pasteurised Cow's MILK, Salt, Cheese Cultures, Animal Rennet, Matured with Lard

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

cheesemakers
Becky & Patrick Holden & the Team at Holden Farm Dairy

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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 Tru...

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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' 80-strong herd of Ayrshire cows graze when they're not sheltering for winter. The vast majority 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. 

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Our Work

We visit Holden Farm Dairy three times a year, and our visits are different to our other Cheddar selections. As Bwlchwernen Fawr is so far away, when we visit we spend time with the team looking ov...

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We visit Holden Farm Dairy three times a year, and our visits are different to our other Cheddar selections. As Bwlchwernen Fawr is so far away, when we visit we spend time with the team looking over make notes and correlating those observations with our tasting notes, helping to shape the team's future experiments and approach.

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our-work: Hafod on the shelves of the cheese store at Holden Farm Dairy

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

Accompaniments

Mixed Seed Crackers
£3.95

Rosebud Old Yorkshire Chutney
£6.10

Rosebud Piccalilli Chutney
£5.25

Serving Suggestions

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

Recipes

Welsh Rarebit with Shropshire Blue & Hafod

Recently we have been exploring the Neal's Yard Dairy library, and in amongst the more distinguished historical works and useful cheesemaking guides, we are lucky to have recipe books from the anna...

Roasted Vegetable Quiche with Hafod from A Portrait British Cheese

A Portrait of British Cheese is a celebration of the excellent cheese produced in the British Isles, featuring many of the cheesemakers we work with. The author Angus D. Birditt features thirty sma...

FAQs

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.

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.

Customer Reviews

Based on 17 reviews
94%
(16)
6%
(1)
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H
Hywel Roberts-Harry
Hafod

Hafod is a regular order and is airways superb

S
Suzie Mundell
Hafod cheese delivery for event at the Barbican

Neal's Yard Dairy could not have been more helpful with this order, and delivered the cheese order direct to the venue as per my request.

Many thanks for your feedback Suzie! We're happy to hear that it all went well.
Kind regards,
NYD

E
Edward Gibbes
Hafod

Lovely bit of cheese. Unimpeachable.

We appreciate your feedback Edward. Thank you so much!
Best wishes,
NYD

D
Douglas Talintyre
Great service

Staff very helpful in making arrangements for delivery. It came on time and in perfect condition and was delicious.

Your feedback is much appreciated Douglas. Thank you for sharing it.
Best wishes,
NYD

G
Gideon Hollis
It’s cheddar but not as you know it.

Not sure what to say. It’s cheddar but…… This is seriously good cheese. Addictive.

We appreciate your feedback Gideon. Thank you so much for sharing it!
All the best,
NYD