The rise of innovative artisan cheeses in supermarkets

Author: Malcolm Avison, Founder of Vantage Houser

Wax-coated cheese has a long and rich history in the UK and Ireland. The tradition of wax-coating cheese dates back to the 17th century, when cheese was often coated in wax to protect it during transportation and storage. 

While the same is true today, the current emphasis is branding and consumer appeal, with supermarkets leading the way in demanding innovation. However, through the availability of low-cost, highly efficient cheese waxing machines, I am pleased that wonderful, innovative artisan cheeses have joined the products of the large corporate cheesemakers on supermarket shelves through the availability of low-cost, highly efficient cheese waxing machines. 

Automatic waxing machines transform the labour-intensive, slow hand dipping process into cheeses-per-minute automation, giving small and medium-sized cheese manufacturers a competitive advantage against corporate cheesemakers. 

If you can put chocolate on a Mars bar – can you put a wax coating around the cheese?

Automatic waxing machines’ origins date back to the 1990s when Ilchester Cheese approached me at a chocolate machinery exhibition and asked, “…if you can put chocolate on a Mars bar – can you put a wax coating around a cheese?” 

While this sounded like a simple transition, the execution proved more of a challenge. I forwarded the question to our manufacturer of chocolate coating machines, Chocoma. Chocoma used their exceptional engineering creativity to produce the first machines that did what Ilchester Cheese asked—a compact machine to thoroughly coat a 200gm Cheddar Cheese “truckle” in one pass.

Innovative waxing machines continue to transform the cheese industry

Since then, we at Vantage House have installed and commissioned 50 waxing machines throughout the UK and Ireland, with several companies buying two or more additions as their sales grew. As a result, we have successfully commissioned units handling many different cheese sizes and formats ranging from “small 20gm Christmas decorations” through “Coke Can” size and shape, “1kg Rugby Ball”, and even 5kg “Truckles.” 

In meeting these challenges, the original machine has steadily evolved, and ChocoMa introduced innovations in many areas while keeping the essential machine cost in line with the original, together with the original simplicity and robustness of operation. 

The machine’s cost-effectiveness speaks for itself, and the sustainable figure of 70+ units processed per minute is worth noticing. The interchangeable color options open new markets where a wide range of cheese types are instantly identifiable, lending them new marketing and branding opportunities even for the smaller Artisan cheese producer. 

It has been a great joy to see how small cheese artisans have grown their businesses with automatic waxing without compromising the mix in sizes and formats.