{"id":3127,"date":"2023-04-20T03:07:20","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T03:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/the-natural-success-story-of-kamiku-cheese-from-navarre-spain\/"},"modified":"2023-04-20T03:07:20","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T03:07:20","slug":"the-natural-success-story-of-kamiku-cheese-from-navarre-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/the-natural-success-story-of-kamiku-cheese-from-navarre-spain\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cNatural\u201d Success Story of Kamiku Cheese from Navarre Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Ainara

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Ainara Ansa photo courtesy of Kamiku<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ainara Ansa is one of those people who may just be good at everything. Warm and well-spoken, an engineer by trade, and now a dairy farmer and award-winning cheesemaker, she\u2019s both confident and humbled by what she and her husband Alberto Migueltora have been building over the past 13 years at their farm in northeastern Spain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ansa met Migueltora, a veterinarian who specializes in animal nutrition, while conducting her own university research. They decided to combine forces by purchasing a small herd of sheep (if you count 700 small) in Migueltora\u2019s hometown of Legasa, nestled in the lush hills of the Se\u00f1or\u00edo de Bertiz natural park. They started off selling the milk to cheesemakers in the area but eventually decided to make their own cheeses, knowing that raising the sheep themselves would give them a leg up: full control of the process and final product.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The couple knew absolutely nothing about cheesemaking, so they set off to learn from artisans and sheep farmers around the country and up into neighboring France. \u201cWe wanted to do something different in the market,\u201d says Ansa. \u201cWe wanted a natural farmer\u2019s cheese and not an industrial one.\u201d Their experiences in each area led them to develop cheeses that combine the practices and preferences of both countries. Spaniards tend to produce more hard aged cheeses, while folks in France prides themselves on creamy interiors and bloomy rinds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Natural Molds <\/strong><\/h2>\n
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\"Sheep\"

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Sheep photo courtesy Kamiku<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They combined the best of both worlds and landed on a primarily Lacuane flock, a breed of sheep known for producing Roquefort cheese that has high quality proteins and fats. As they began to produce their first batch\u2014 an aged cheese with a bloomy rind made from unpasteurized milk\u2014 something marvelous began to happen. Unfamiliar molds outside of the type of cheese molds they were using began to grow. According to their expert mold vendor, they were healthy cheesemaking molds produced naturally by the humid nature of the rainy region.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ansa and Migeultora now rely solely on the natural Bertiz molds surrounding them in Legasa to produce their Queso Curado, which has won them numerous international awards. Unlike other hard cheeses, the molds keep the interior extra creamy while still maintaining the poignant bite so characteristic of aged Spanish cheeses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"Kamiku<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Called \u201ctruly raw\u201d the cheese made with raw milk that never exceeds 40\u00baC during processing. The brand was named Kamiku<\/a> after Migueltora\u2019s family home. In this particular region of northern Spain, homes had specific names like neighborhoods, and folks recognized people by the homes in which they grew up. Alberto was born and raised in the Kamioa house, making him a \u201cKamiku,\u201d or person of the Kamioa house.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today Kamiku has over 6,000 sheep and controls the entire process from the farm to sales, which gives them maximum control over flavor and quality. Their Lacunae sheep give birth at different times throughout the year which Ansa says helps them get a consistently balanced milk and eventually a homogenous product folks can count on. Since their inception, Kamiku has expanded their knowledge and style, now producing five styles of cheese with their own milk, from a rich sheep\u2019s milk camembert called \u201cCamemberitz,\u201d to regionally popular varieties smoked with natural woods. All their rinds continue to be natural and edible\u2014 never a synthetic paint\u2014 and the milk pure and nutrient dense.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Kamiku Values <\/strong><\/h2>\n
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\"Brushing

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Brushing the cheese photo courtesy of Kamiku<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Producing exceptional cheese is just one component of the family\u2019s holistic vision. For one, they\u2019ve created employment opportunities in Legasa. Despite the town\u2019s size (the sheep far outnumber the habitants), all quality control, business administration, and production are led by women, and they have a diverse team in terms of age and nationality. Environmental sustainability is also naturally built into their business practices: they use sheep manure to fertilize the fields where they grow their winter fodder, they give excess whey to three local pig farmers, and solar panels line the farm and cheese processing facilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no surprise that herding thousands of sheep, running a dairy, processing five styles of cheese, and managing a business is serious work. The couple also have three sons, who help when they\u2019re not in school. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of sacrifice,\u201d says Ansa. \u201cWhen you are raising sheep you can\u2019t close a single day of the year.\u201d And while Ansa and Migueltora continue to win awards, Ansa says it’s the personal calls from customers that keep them going. \u201cWe put our phone number on the label. When our customers call us to tell us how much they love our products, it brings us so much joy and gives us strength.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ainara Ansa photo courtesy of Kamiku Ainara Ansa is one of those people who may just be good at everything. Warm and well-spoken, an engineer by trade, and now a dairy farmer and award-winning cheesemaker, she\u2019s both confident and humbled by what she and her husband Alberto Migueltora have been building over the past 13 … Okumaya devam et “The \u201cNatural\u201d Success Story of Kamiku Cheese from Navarre Spain”<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1271,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[395],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-milk-and-diary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}