Creating The Perfect Tickler
To make sure Tickler is fabulous every time takes patience - 18 months of patience in fact - plus the skills and dedication of a team who are proud of their creation in Tickler extra mature cheddar.
The process starts with the farmer…
The Farmer:
Only British milk goes into Tickler, from the lush Devon milk fields near Dartmoor. In fact The Cheese Company is owned by farmers who have put their efforts into producing fresh creamy milk that is picked up every morning in local tankers and taken to our creameries where it starts its journey to become award winning cheese. This way the farmers know that they, and the countryside we all love, have a sustainable future.
The Cheesemakers:
Based in Taw Valley our cheesemakers are incredibly proud of Tickler, a cheddar with an unusual depth of flavour that they discovered and originally sold from the creamery shop. Until of course the secret of Tickler was discovered and was too good not to be shared nationwide!
This core team take the milk and make it into Tickler that is ready for ageing by simply adding rennet and salt. Sounds simple but it's a delicate and natural process from which only the very best progresses to become full fledged Tickler.
The Maturing House:
It tends to be quiet in here because we wait, and wait, and wait…
The Graders
There are only 3 graders that work with Tickler and have done since the beginning, Sally, Steve and Jackie. They have the ultimate task of deciding what is Tickler and what isn't.
Working with their grading irons, sense of scent and finely tuned taste buds, they grade to a specific list of flavours and textures that the perfect Tickler has to have. There is a large bit of intuition here too; the graders are so particular that they find it hard to explain when they simply know what is Tickler and what isn't!
The Packaging
Now Tickler is all ready to go, our packaging team cut into 200g wedges or deli sized portions and make Tickler ready to go out to stores. Tickler outer packaging is unique as it is paper based with a foil lining which means you can scrunch back over to keep Tickler tasting fresh and perfect. Of course it's also easy and quick to scrunch because we know you can't resist a quick nibble!
