Punch is a cheese to be eaten out in the harvest field. Dirty clothes, torn bread, sun-chapped skin, cider. It reflects a time when farming was physical, local and uncompromising.
This cheese is made right here on our Suffolk farm, by our own hands, from the milk
of our free-ranging Montbéliarde cows.
Punch
PUNCH TESTIMONIAL
Tell me how Punch connects to Suffolk and Norfolk’s agricultural past?
Food and place are intricately tied throughout human history.
In Suffolk and Norfolk, agricultural life runs deep through families and generations.
Much of that history is still remembered through stories passed down from
grandparents. Accounts of a time when life was shaped by the rhythm of the land
and the seasons.
Farming then was hard, physical work, but it was also rooted in simplicity and shared
experience. Food reflected that way of life. During harvest, meals were often taken
out in the fields. People would eat simple, sustaining foods such as cheeses matured
in cool brick cellars or pantries, bread, fruit and salted or smoked meats.
Straightforward, hardworking food.
Punch is a simple cheese, made in the traditional way. It is exactly the type of small
lactic cheese that would have been made swiftly in farmhouse kitchens and washed
or wiped with beer or brine to preserve it. It is pocket-sized and portable. Perfect for
a quick farmer’s lunch out in the field.
Why the name Punch?
We named this cheese Punch for several reasons:
Firstly, Punch is a name connected with old Suffolk and Norfolk. This is a cheese
shaped by the same forces that shaped farming before engines and efficiency took
over. It takes its name from the Suffolk Punch, the heavy horses that once worked
the land around Fen Farm Dairy. Animals bred for strength, patience, and an ability
to pull immense weight, day after day. These horses didn’t rush. They pressed
forward slowly, steadily, changing the ground through effort and repetition.
That same thinking sits behind Punch cheese. It’s made using old agricultural
instincts rather than modern shortcuts. Punch reflects a pre-industrial mindset where
farming was physical, local, and uncompromising. Nothing decorative, nothing
wasted. Just milk, land, labour, and time brought together to produce something real
and unapologetically honest.
Secondly, there is a tradition of short, sharp, single-syllable names in older East
Anglian cheeses, such as Thump and Bang. Punch sits comfortably within that style,
as though it belongs to a forgotten but familiar naming language of the region.
Thirdly, the flavour profile of this cheese is bold and punchy, and the name reflects
that character.
These are our 3 secrets:
Shhh... don't tell anyone. There's a reason our products are some of the finest in the world and it has nothing to do with fancy tech or good marketing. It's simply that everything we do is right here on our farm. We have control over every step, from soil to finished product. Every process feeds the next. We call this circular farming.
Control
We grow our own forage and grazing right here in the surrounding landscape. We care for every cow in our herd as an individual and we care for our precious milk from the moment it leaves the cow. What we take from the land we then put back again. We call this circular farming.
Proximity
Within minutes of the morning milking, our fresh milk is already in the making rooms just a few metres away. Within hours it is being made into cheese and butter. Our milk doesn’t spend time being transported meaning our produce retains all the incredible characteristics of our fresh milk.
Gentleness
Our unique set up allows our milk to be gently gravity fed from the milking parlour into the making rooms next door. We choose to make our produce by hand, avoiding the use of big industrial dairy equipment. No piece of machinery can imitate the gentleness of a true artisan, who really cares.
Learn about Fen Farm Dairy, our family farm and the home of Baron Bigod.
How Suffolk are you?
Test your old Suffolk dialect knowledge with our quiz.
Why make a third cheese and why only in summer?
This cheese has been created to use the surplus of rich, nutrient-dense milk that our
cows produce in the summer, while the grazing pastures are at their most abundant.
During this period, when the cows are out grazing on a variety of plant life, the milk
tends to be lower in butterfat. We settled on a lactic washed-rind cheese because it
works especially well with this type of seasonal milk, allowing us to make something
that reflects both the milk and the conditions of the summer grazing period.