Cheese production business: mini cheese dairies

You are keen to open your own cheese dairy but cannot invest hundreds of thousands of euros? There is a solution: a mini cheese dairy. With modern compact lines you can open a small production workshop of 100 m² for no more than €11,200. As sales grow, you can add new equipment to the cheese dairy and increase production capacity.

Key questions when opening a cheese dairy:

• business plan

• equipment

• premises

• expert advice on documentation and legal matters

• raw milk suppliers

• hiring and training staff

Choosing a cheese vat. Any cheese dairy is equipped with main and auxiliary equipment. The main equipment is a stainless steel vat, ideally with a capacity of 100 to 360 litres.

From 100 litres of milk this equipment can produce:

• 7–9 kg of hard cheese
• 5–6 kg of sour cream (20% fat)
• 13–15 kg of soft cheese
• 6–7 kg of sour cream (20% fat)
• 100 L of various drinking products: kefir and snezhok, yoghurt and ryazhenka (baked fermented milk), varenets and ayran, tan, etc.

A cheese vat with a capacity of 100 litres of milk per day costs from €2,300.

The auxiliary equipment — a tank for fully draining the cheese curd, a colander for straining the curd grains, a moulding table, moulds, a press, racks for storage and ripening, climate control for the ripening room and an automatic packing line — together costs roughly the same as the cheese vat.

Premises

You can rent premises that already meet all the necessary requirements and standards, or prepare them yourself. The premises must have the necessary utilities (water supply, heating, electricity, sewerage, ventilation). Floors and walls must be tiled. Fire extinguishers and fire boards must be provided.

Suppliers

Before signing a supply contract, it is important to visit the farm and see how it is run. According to experienced cheesemakers, 95% of milk is unsuitable for cheese production because of frequent breaches of hygiene rules, traces of antibiotics and poor-quality feed.

Staff

It is advisable to have an experienced dairy process engineer in the workshop to ensure quality cheese production. In general, 3–4 people are enough to run a cheese dairy. If possible, send them for training. All production staff must hold health certificates.

Start your business today. You can get expert advice from our experienced staff by phone on +7 (967) 639-08-14 or submit a request on the Milberg website.