St Jude Cheese

St Jude Cheese is a small-scale artisan cheesemaker led by founder Julie Cheyney, producing raw cow’s-milk cheeses from a single family farm in Norfolk. Julie began her cheesemaking journey more than two decades ago while seeking ways to diversify farm production and create a British soft cheese comparable to classic Brie or Camembert, made with raw milk.

Before launching her own venture, Julie co-founded Hampshire Cheese Company and helped develop Tunworth, later working with affineurs and retailers including Neal’s Yard Dairy. With guidance from French cheesemaker Ivan Larcher, she created St Jude, a delicate lactic-set cheese designed to be made with minimal equipment but with significant flavour complexity.

Today the cheeses are produced using fresh raw milk sourced from a nearby family farm herd grazing pastures near the Norfolk Broads. The milk is transformed into cheese within hours of milking, reflecting Julie’s philosophy that cheesemaking should treat milk “slowly and gently” with minimal intervention.

Core cheeses

St Jude
The dairy’s signature cheese, St Jude is a small mould-ripened raw-milk soft cheese with a light, mousse-like texture and flavours that change with the seasons depending on the cows’ diet. In spring and summer it shows grassy, fresh-cream notes, while winter batches develop deeper buttery richness.

St Cera
St Cera begins life as a young St Jude but is transformed through a brine-washing process that develops a pinkish washed rind and a richer, more pungent flavour. The result is an intensely creamy, often spoonable cheese with earthy, farmyard complexity and a custard-like centre when ripe.

St Helena
St Helena is a semi-soft washed-rind cheese made using raw cow’s milk and a different cheesemaking process. Matured from around four weeks, it develops a burnt-orange rind and a creamy interior, with flavours evolving from fresh and bright when young to nutty and brothy as it matures.

Together these cheeses demonstrate Cheyney’s philosophy of allowing the milk, seasons and maturation environment to shape flavour and texture.