Kris: What I love about cheese making is that I can take something like milk and turn it into something flavoursome. It is really satisfying to do.

Leigh: She’s South Australia’s pocket rocket of cheese: Chris Lloyd is a passionate advocate of the art of cheese- making, with award winning Woodside products to prove it.

Leigh: A long history in cheese making started as a child is that how it happened?

Kris: No, not at all! I never made cheese before I started at Woodside.

Leigh: So how did you get involved?

Kris: I guess it was from having a winery in the family. One of the things we always thought would be wonderful is to have cheese as an accompaniment and I guess the rest is pretty much history.

Leigh: so the business was up for sale, you bought the business and you know absolutely nothing about cheese making?

Kris: Zero, absolutely zero! Shall we say a very steep learning curve, it wasn’t easy to start with, but perseverance, patience and persistence we finally got there.

Leigh: Why the decision to go hands on? You could buy the business put an experienced cheese maker in there, but you say “I’m going to have a crack at this”

Kris: I started to put the business in place as far as business and marketing which is the skills I had but one day I wandered in and thought, I might just have a little go at this, and yeah it was quite fascinating and I quite fell in love with it. I’m still in love with it, it’s great!

Leigh: Tragically I love cheese, I adore cheese. You are tiny. How can you be with all this gorgeous cheese so tiny?

Kris: I am asked that often. I’m a runner, I probably run it all off.

Leigh: What makes a great cheese?

Kris: What makes a great cheese? Great milk! It’s no different to winemaking.

Leigh: Right ingredients.

Kris: Exactly yeah.

Leigh: What are some of the unusual things you’ve put together?

Kris: It think the most unusual thing that we have done is wrapping a cheese. Smearing in horseradish and wrapping in horseradish leaves.

Leigh: Did it work?

Kris: No it was terrible it would have to be my biggest failure.

Leigh: Some of your cheeses are award winning. When you look at the range what’s the baby you’re most proud of?

Kris: Definitely Figaro. It took me a long time to get it right that people said it’s not going to work but I said No I am going to make it work. It’s actually a goat milk cheese that’s washed rind semi hard. We wash it put it away and then wrap it in vine leaves and mature it for 3 -6 months.

Leigh: What do vine leaves do?

Kris: Really imparts unusual flavour to the cheese and between the tannins and wash on the rind and a lot of the flavour comes from that rind.

Leigh: now you’re involved in Cheesefest. Tell me about it?

Kris: Well Cheesefest actually came from my travels. I travelled overseas and attended a lot of festivals and competitions and when I came back from my trip in 2002 I thought, we just don’t have anything like that here in SA. It seemed like a real pity so I took all the bits from all the competitions and shows I attended and thought ok I am going to put something together here in Adelaide, going to get the cheese makers on board and we are going to have the biggest cheese festival in Australia So Cheesefest is a celebration of cheese making.

Leigh: And you can always visit the Woodside cellar door, any time of the year, just look for the signs off the main street and try some of Kris’s amazing creations for yourself.

Leigh: Kris, busy mum, festival organiser business owner, what’s next?

Kris: I think that it’s probably going to be more of the same. I’m still very passionate about what I do so I’m going to continue on, yeah.

Leigh: So the Cheesefest coming up next month, when, where?

Kris: Yes Rymill Park October 15/16 Saturday and Sunday, both days celebrity chefs, winemakers, restaurants and lots of cheese for people to try. A great way to try Cheese that you hadn’t before.

Leigh: Sounds great I’ll be there thank you so much for your time.

Kris: Thank you Leigh.