The organic farm Peteh – Vučji ogrizek, Slovenia

The organic farm Peteh – Vučji ogrizek in Bela krajina was taken over in 2018 by a young owner Izidor Grabrijan together with his partner Manca. The farm is engaged in sheep breeding and is the only one in Bela krajina in the production of homemade sheep cheese. They have a little more than 200 adult sheep (Bela krajina pramenka, Bovec, and refined Jezersko-Solčava breeds) and 100 offspring. The original source of the farm’s income was the sale of sheep.

 The young owners decided to add value to the milk and started making cheese from organic sheep’s milk. They helped each other with the experience of other cheesemakers when choosing equipment for cheese-making. They opted for Plevnik’s SKH 300 EW Professional with MC 500 controller and a stable HNP 500 milk cooling pool, with the help of which they produce sheep’s yogurt, sheep’s whey, ripened and soft sheep’s cheese, and sheep’s albumen curd.

The majority of products are sold to end customers, the number of which has increased due to a larger holiday in Bela krajina, and some to the surrounding health food stores.

They found their market niche and cheese-making became the main source of their income. For further development, they set up a new cheese factory with storage space, a ripening room, and a shop.