The French eat 20 kilograms of cheese per person per year. Australians eat just 12 kilograms – and 60 per cent of that is cheddar. But this is something Franck Beaurain wants to change.
The French-born cheese guru took the helm of award-winning cheese manufacturer Jindi Cheese just a week after the Black Saturday fires tore through Jindivick, north of Drouin, in Gippsland.
In less than 15 months, Mr Beaurain has taken Jindi back to the peak of the cheese world – it was named world champion cheese in the blue-veined, exterior moulding category at the 2010 Wisconsin world cheesemakers competition.
''On the international stage, Jindi was starting to be in the past because it was 1996, 2002 and 2004 when we last won awards,'' Mr Beaurain, group executive manager, said.
Last night, Jindi Cheese was inducted into the Victorian Manufacturers Hall of Fame.
Heat and smoke from the devastating bushfires of February 2009 destroyed the company's maturing brie and camembert cheeses.
''When I started, the fire was still on the first page of the newspaper,'' Mr Beaurain said. ''We were still very nervous. To get the confidence back takes a while.''
To read the rest of the story, please go to: The Sydney Morning Herald