Over the Moon Dairy Company


The business and its sister company New Zealand Cheese School Ltd was set up early in 2008 based in Putaruru, in the heart of South Waikato. The purpose of these businesses is to provide a premier centre, a base, for specialty cheesemaking and dairy products in New Zealand. Over the Moon produces and sells cheese, while its sister company the New Zealand Cheese School delivers industry accredited training to the New Zealand cheese industry from the same site, and workshops for home cheesemakers all over New Zealand.

Over the Moon is building a strong reputation for high standards and within a month of production had secured 3 medals at the New Zealand Cheese Awards in March 2008. In 2009, 13 months after our start-up we won the highest award for a small cheese producer in New Zealand – the Cuisine New Zealand Champion of Cheese Artisan Award. In 2010 we followed this up with the same award, and won 2 “Best in Class” (golds) at the World Champs in Wisconsin. At the 2011 Awards in New Zealand we won 2 classes out of 15.

The cheeses are all hand-made using traditional open vat methods and batches are small so we can achieve the highest quality. Our products are more flavoursome than many New Zealand standards and we have had feedback that our soft cheeses tend to be “French” in style. New Zealand flavours such as horopito (pepper) and some unusual ingredients as well as the more traditional are used. We love to innovate and will always be experimenting with new styles and flavours.