Ilchester Cheese Company

The Ilchester Cheese Company is a British cheese company. They do not actually manufacture any cheese, but specialise in blending a variety of British cheeses with other ingredients, such as beer and fruit.

History

In 1962 Ken Seaton, owner of the Ivelchester Hotel in Ilchester, found that too much cheese was sitting unpurchased in the hotel's dining room. To create demand for the cheese, he decided to try combining it with spices and beer. After several months, he settled on a recipe including chives, Worthington E Bitter beer and a secret blend of spices. He had created his now-famous beer cheese.

Not only did Ken's new recipe move the cheese, the cheese also attracted people to the hotel. In just a few months the demand for the new cheese became so great that Ken opened a factory in Ilchester to create a great deal more of it than he could in his kitchen at the hotel. Demand for the cheese grew, and soon the company was selling its cheese all over the UK and internationally.

Today, the Ilchester Cheese Company makes and sells tens of millions of packs of cheese annually.

References

In Monty Python's Cheese Shop sketch, Ilchester is revealed to be the most popular cheese in the manor in which the cheese shop itself resides. In reality there is no such food as Ilchester Cheese.

External links

* [http://www.ilchester.co.uk Company website]