The greatest pioneer in the history of Danish cheese is undisputedly the farmer's daughter Hanne Nielsen (1829-1903). In the 1850s she established an ambitious Danish cheese production plant based on milk that she bought from her husband's farm, Havarthigaard.

In 1874 she also made the first Danish blue cheese inspired by the French cheese Roquefort, which she had encountered on one of her many study trips abroad.

Around 40 years after Hanne Nielsen made her blue cheese, the dairyman Marius Boel created Danablu, "Danish Blue Cheese", which is now recognized by the EU as being uniquely Danish and has the designation PGI.

Tradition has it that, as a child, Marius Boel had noticed that mouldy bread had a distinctive, piquant taste and that, when he was an adult dairyman, he transformed this memory into innovation.

From 1914 he experimented with adding a little dried, pulverised mouldy bread to fresh curd. And when, in the 1920s, he also found out how to homogenise milk, he had created an original, unique Danish blue cheese.

The consistency was creamy, fat and cuttable and the taste was round, piquant and full of nuances. Visually, the cheese was characterised by a beautiful, almost regular blue-green marbling that tended to decrease towards the outer edge of the cheese. This was Danablu, "Danish Blue Cheese", as we know it today.

Danablu has since conquered the world and gained a lot of international recognition. For example, it has almost become a tradition for Danablu to win gold in its category and become the overall world champion at the cheese world championship in Wisconsin, USA.

The making of Danablu

Danablu is made from full fat cow's milk and homogenised cream, to which mould culture and natural rennet are added.

When the milk is hardening, the curd is pricked with needles becuse the mould culture needs a lot of oxygen to develop.

The storage of Danablu is a craft that requires knowledge and love. The cheeses mature for 5-6 weeks and are turned carefully roughly every 3 days so that the mould gets enough oxygen to spread evenly from the interior of the cheese to the entire cheese. The storage contributes to creating the character of Danablu.