Why We Choose Natural Ferments for Cheese Production
by Daniel Donici
Cheese is a quiet kind of magic. A few basic ingredients—milk, bacteria, and time—can turn into something complex, deeply flavorful, and nourishing. At Artesana, when we started crafting our small-batch cheeses, we didn’t try to reinvent that process. We simply wanted to do it honestly.
That’s why we only use natural ferments in our cheese production.
No synthetic additives, no lab-made shortcuts, and definitely no artificial flavor boosters. Just traditional bacterial cultures that transform fresh milk into living, evolving food. It takes patience. It takes precision. And it always starts with trust—in nature, in the milk, and in the method.
Let me walk you through why this choice matters more than most people realize.
What Are Natural Ferments?
Natural ferments are live bacterial cultures that grow and multiply during the cheesemaking process. They help convert lactose (milk sugar) into lactic acid, which changes the pH of the milk, separates the curds from the whey, and begins building flavor and texture.
At Artesana, we use cultures that have been selected through generations of cheesemakers—some of them quite literally passed down from one cellar to another. These cultures are not genetically modified or manufactured in a lab. They’re grown slowly, in small amounts, and added by hand.
This approach is the opposite of industrial starter powders or shelf-stable “quick ferment” kits that promise speed and control but flatten the final product’s character.
Why Not Use Synthetic Starters?
It would be easy. It would be faster. And for large-scale producers, it’s the norm.
But synthetic starters often aim for uniformity, not depth. They can sterilize a process that’s meant to be alive. And worst of all, they remove the possibility for cheese to taste like a place—what some people call terroir.
Using natural ferments allows our cheese to carry the nuances of our milk, our environment, and our process. It doesn’t just make cheese. It makes our cheese.
Flavor That Develops Over Time
One of the most beautiful things about natural fermentation is that it doesn’t stop when the cheese leaves the mold. It keeps evolving.
Our soft cheeses become more buttery with age. Our fresh cheeses develop a slight tang after a few days. That’s not inconsistency—it’s life.
With synthetic starters, flavor tends to stay frozen. What you taste on day one is what you’ll get on day thirty. But we like that our cheese grows up, day by day, in your fridge.
This is why we recommend eating our cheese while it’s still “alive.” Because each bite can be a little different, depending on when you meet it.
Health Benefits of Natural Ferments
Natural fermentation also supports gut health. While most industrial cheeses are pasteurized and processed in ways that kill beneficial bacteria, our small-batch cheeses—especially the fresh and soft varieties—retain many of their live cultures.
These cultures may:
Aid digestion
Support a healthy balance of gut flora
Help break down lactose
Contribute to immune health
It’s not a probiotic pill, but it is food with function—made in a way your body understands.
The Role of Milk
Of course, the success of any fermentation depends on the milk. That’s why we’re incredibly careful about sourcing. Our milk comes from trusted Romanian farms, where the animals are well-fed, well-treated, and milked with respect. The fewer antibiotics, additives, and stress hormones in the milk, the better the ferment behaves.
You can’t fake good milk. And you can’t ask a ferment to do its best work in poor conditions.
A Small Team, A Focused Process
Our cheese room isn’t a giant warehouse. It’s a few dedicated people working in silence, testing temperatures, tasting samples, and watching over the process like gardeners.
There are no conveyor belts. No blinking dashboards. Just tools, notebooks, and experience.
We culture each batch based on conditions that day—temperature, humidity, and the feel of the curds. It’s not scalable in the traditional sense. But we’re not aiming for mass production. We’re aiming for meaningful production.
Keeping It Local, Sharing It Globally
As Artesana heads to the 2025 Go Global Awards in London, we carry with us the quiet confidence that food made honestly can still have a place on the world stage.
Our cheeses may not win awards for innovation or speed—but they represent something more valuable: care, restraint, and a refusal to compromise.
And when someone in another country tastes one of our soft cheeses and says, “That reminds me of something from my childhood,” we know we’ve done our job.
Final Thought
There are faster ways to make cheese. More efficient systems. More uniform results.
But none of those paths feel right to us.
So we stick to the old way. The slow way. The way that listens to the milk, respects the culture, and waits for flavor to arrive on its own time.
Because real food doesn’t just feed the body. It feeds trust.—