Harvey Cheese leaves award ceremony with bounty, top prize for signature chive and garlic butter

There are few things better than a slice of bread and butter — besides perhaps a slice of bread and Harvey Cheese’s award winning butter. Workers at the popular South West cheese factory were thrilled to announce a bounty of victories at the Dairy Industry Association of Australia 2024 awards. Harvey Cheese walked away with 12 gold and 19 silver medals as well as winning the prestigious 2024 Dairy Product Award of Excellence for some truly delicious chive and garlic butter. Entering 35 individual products in the competition, the team was ecstatic 31 of their entries placed so well. Crafter of the award winning butter Sonia Riches — or as her collages know her, the butter queen — said she was thrilled to be recognised for her work. “It’s heavy work, but it’s worth it,” she said. “It’s bloody good to be recognised.” Ms Riches has spent six years perfecting her recipe. It includes mixing 120 litres of cream into butter, adding in her signature spices, before moulding them all by hand. “It’s all handmade and all hand wrapped,” Ms Riches said. She said she remembers the day she made the butter for the awards perfectly. “I said ‘this is it, this is a nice butter’,” she said. Though, Ms Riches is confident any butter she takes out of their fridge would be just as good as the batch she made that day. One of Ms Riches other specialities is the signature blue cheese. She said pokes more than 300 holes in each cheese wheel multiple times to develop the deep veins of mould that pass through the cheese — a skill she has been developing for over two years. Cheese maker Megan Foster was also thrilled by the amount of awards the company managed to take home. “It puts a shine on all the hard work we do,” she said. Harvey Cheese’s Mediterranean herbs marinated feta, chilli and garlic feta, ring stinger, haloumi, chilli and garlic camembert, bruschetta Camembert, ash blonde Camembert, chive and garlic Camembert, st duke’s blue, pepper and garlic havarti, salted butter and chive and garlic butter all left the awards with gold medals. Silver medals were awarded to the plain fetta, plain fetta in brine, chilli and garlic fetta, herb and garlic fetta, Moroccan fetta, tomato and olive fetta, persian fetta, Romano, smokey, omg triple cream, brie, ash brie, lemon myrtle brie, omg blue triple cream, st duke’s red, st duke’s Swiss, havarti cumin seed, chilli and garlic havarti and their signature milk.