Scotland’s artisan cheese makers

Tobermory, Isle of Mull

The last dairy farm in the Hebrides, run by the Reade family since the 1980s after they moved north from Somerset. The herd's diet is supplemented with draff — spent grain husks — from Tobermory distillery, which is why the cheddar carries a hint of the boozy about it. The cheese is made with unpasteurised milk and matured to a strong, richly savoury finish that holds its own against the great English farmhouse cheddars.

Home Farm, Brodick, Isle of Arran · making cheese since 1991

The Kinniburgh family has made cheese on Arran since 1991, using milk from three of the island's dairy farms. The Brodick shop sells the waxed cheddar truckles the company is known for, alongside Arran Blue and Arran Mist from the family's second operation, Bellevue Creamery at Shiskine — Arran Blue took silver at the British Cheese Awards back in 2006 and remains the island's signature cheese.

The Creamery, Campbeltown, Kintyre · making cheese since 1992

Kay Eaton started making goat's cheese in her kitchen in 1992 when the milk market for her son's herd collapsed, moved the operation to a farm on the Isle of Gigha, and built it into Kintyre's cheesemaker. Production now runs from the old creamery buildings in Campbeltown — the same site that made Mull of Kintyre cheddar until the big creamery closed in 2019, which makes Inverloch the keeper of cheesemaking on the peninsula.

Grimbister, near Kirkwall, Orkney

Orkney's traditional farmhouse cheese, made at Grimbister by Anne Seator, who took over from her mother Hilda. It's a style that barely exists anymore: a fresh cheese aged only days, crumbly and sharp when young, developing a fruity, yeasty character if you let it sit. Most Scottish cheese in this guide imitates continental styles; Grimbister is the genuinely native article.

Rendall, Orkney

Orkney's newest cheesemaker: Barry Graham, a retired welder who learned the craft as a teenager from his grandmother on Westray, now making her style of cheese commercially with mentoring from a former Wilson's of Westray cheesemaker. Production is small and space-constrained, which is exactly what the early days of every farmhouse revival look like. One for Orkney visits rather than mail order, for now.

Stornoway, Isle of Lewis

The first dairy in the Outer Hebrides to make hand-made artisan cheese, working with goat's and cow's milk from their own croft. The flagship Brìgh nan Eilean — a goat's-milk brie — is the kind of cheese the islands simply didn't produce until now. A genuine pioneer in a place where dairy had all but disappeared.

Ardersier, near Inverness · making cheese since 2006

The Clark brothers' fully organic dairy at Ardersier, where 150 cows graze clover pastures on the Moray Firth and the milk goes straight into the most consistent award-winner in Highland cheesemaking. Clava Brie is the best-known, but the aged Gouda — named Best Scottish Cheese at Melton Mowbray in 2023 — is the connoisseur's pick. Third-generation family farming, organic since before it was fashionable.

Blarliath Farm, Tain, Easter Ross · making cheese since 1963

The Stone family has made cheese at Tain since 1963, and Rory Stone has run it since the mid-1990s with a streak of mischief — naming a washed-rind cheese Minger takes a certain confidence. The serious point: this is the home of Caboc, a cream cheese with a claim to being Scotland's oldest, and Strathdon Blue, the blue you're most likely to meet on a good Scottish cheeseboard.

Cambus O'May, near Ballater, Royal Deeside · making cheese since 2009

Alex Reid built this Deeside creamery in 2009 to make cheese exactly the way his mother Barbara made it in the 1950s — raw milk, natural curd ripening, pressed in cast-iron chessels and bandaged in cotton. The recipes are unchanged in half a century and every cheese is named for the landscape: Lairig Ghru, Lochnagar, Auld Reekie. Royal Deeside's cheese, in every sense.

Banchory-Devenick, near Aberdeen · making cheese since 2006

The Groat family has farmed at Banchory-Devenick since 1959 and turned to cheesemaking in 2006, building it around their British Friesian herd and a farm shop, The Tin Coo, that's become a fixture for Aberdeen food shopping. The farm runs on its own biomass heat and wind turbine — north-east practicality applied to dairy.

Falside Farm, Pittenweem, by Anstruther · making cheese since 2008

Fife's only raw-milk farmhouse cheesemaker, making Anster from home-bred Holstein-Friesian cows at Falside Farm since 2008. The cheese took Best Scottish Cheese at the British & Irish Cheese Awards in 2025, and the farm is one of the few in Scotland where you can watch the make through a viewing gallery and then eat it upstairs. Pair it with fish and chips from the harbour below — the article that sent us here says exactly that.

Cultybraggan Camp, Comrie, Perthshire · making cheese since 2016

A resurrection story. Founded in 2016 in a Nissen hut at Cultybraggan POW camp, famous for washing its cheese in Glenturret whisky brine, Strathearn closed in February 2025 when the founder couldn't find new premises — and was revived eight months later by Ben Hodgson, a 26-year-old former Gleneagles pastry chef. Wee Comrie and Lady Mary are back; the whisky-washed Strathearn returns in 2026. Buy some and keep the revival going.

Auchtertool, by Kirkcaldy, Fife · making cheese since 2005

Steven Mitchell's herd of 500-plus water buffalo — the largest in Scotland — makes the country's only buffalo mozzarella, launched in 2021 and good enough to take silver at the World Cheese Awards a year later. The business went into administration in March 2024 and Mitchell fought it back, securing new funding and keeping the farm shop and café trading throughout. Stocked in every Aldi in Scotland, which for a Fife farm with one product line is quite a thing.

Walston Braehead Farm, Carnwath, South Lanarkshire · making cheese since 1985

Scotland's most consequential cheesemaker. The Errington family has made raw-milk sheep cheese at Carnwath since 1985, and fought the defining legal battle for Scottish raw-milk cheesemaking — a 2016–2018 food-safety case that ended with the family fully cleared in court and awarded expenses. They came out the other side still making Lanark Blue, and their Blackmount took the overall championship at the Royal Highland Show's Scottish Dairy Championships in 2025.

West Clerkland Farm, Stewarton, Ayrshire · making cheese since 1989

Ann Dorward has made cheese at West Clerkland Farm since 1989 and is the keeper of the flame for Traditional Ayrshire Dunlop — the sweet-milk cheese Ayrshire was once famous for, now PGI-protected and made nowhere else. The milk comes from the farm's own Ayrshire cows and Swiss dairy goats; her first batch of Bonnet took gold at the International Cheese Show in London the year she started.

Knockraich Farm, Fintry, Stirlingshire · making cheese since 2009

A small Stirlingshire creamery, established in 2009 on a farm the Rodger family has held since 1955, best known for keeping crowdie — Scotland's ancient fresh cheese — in proper artisan production. Everything is made with non-homogenised milk from the farm's own sixty British Friesians, alongside multi-award-winning yoghurt, crème fraîche and cultured butter.

Garden Cottage Farm, Stichill, near Kelso · making cheese since 1986

A mother-and-daughter operation milking Jerseys at Stichill since the 1980s, making raw-milk Kelsae cheese and — uniquely in Scotland — proper clotted cream. The rich Jersey milk does the heavy lifting; the farmers-market counter does the selling. If you see the stall, buy the clotted cream too: nobody else in the country makes it.

Beeswing, near Dumfries · making cheese since 1985

A Camphill community — supporting adults with learning disabilities — that happens to make some of Scotland's best cheese, from biodynamic Jersey and Ayrshire milk, unpasteurised and set with vegetarian rennet. The creamery has taken awards at the UK's top cheese competitions every year since 1991. The farmhouse cheddar is nuttier and less acidic than most Scottish cheddars, matured in the farm's own cellar.

Gatehouse of Fleet, Dumfries & Galloway · making cheese since 2018

The Finlay family's Rainton Farm runs Europe's largest cow-with-calf dairy — calves stay suckling with their mothers for five to six months instead of being separated at birth, a system they made permanent in 2019 after a three-year trial. The cheese brand launched in 2018 to make the economics work, and the raw-milk, organic results have started collecting national awards. Farming that leads with welfare, and cheese good enough to carry it.

Millairies Farm, Sorbie, Wigtownshire · making cheese since 1990

One of very few Scottish producers working seriously with sheep's milk, making Cairnsmore from a Friesland flock at Sorbie since 1990. The cheese is organic, unpasteurised and strictly seasonal — made only April to October when the ewes are in milk — which is exactly the kind of constraint industrial cheese eliminated and farmhouse cheese wears proudly.

Mouswald, near Dumfries

A newer name doing something genuinely different: alpine-style cheese from a pedigree Brown Swiss herd — the classic mountain-cheese breed — on a family farm in the hills above the Solway. The tomme took gold at Melton Mowbray's artisan awards in 2025 and the halloumi won at the Great Yorkshire Show the year before. One to watch.