About Andrew Legg

I have loved cheese since I can remember.  Early memories of family holidays include stopping at the cheese shop in Mercer near Auckland, each time the family passed.  I went on to study Food Technology at Massey University in Palmerston North, which led to a research & development job (working with cheese of course) at Fonterra, where I worked for 7 years.  During this time I contributed to the development of a number of cheeses that were launched in New Zealand and Australia.  
In 2012, I left New Zealand for the UK with my wife Sandi (who was also a cheese technologist) with the aim of gaining more experience with artisan cheeses.  On the way there we stopped at the World Championship Cheese Contest in Madison, Wisconsin, and met David Lockwood from Neals Yard Dairy in London.  When we got to London, David hooked us up with a farmhouse dairy (Holker Farm) in Cumbria in the north of England, where we spent 5 months making raw ewe's milk washed rind cheese.  We then spent the winter in London working at Neal's Yard Dairy - Andrew ripening cheeses in the railway arches at Bermondsey, and Sandi as a cheesemonger in the shop near Borough Market.   
After a year away, we moved home and spent some time preparing to open our own cheese shop.  But after a while we dropped the plans and moved back to Fonterra, where I have been working since 2014 again as a cheese technologist.  This allows me to travel occasionally to visit customers in interesting parts of the world (Mexico, Brasil, China, Indonesia, Egypt, Iran etc) which helps me continue to discover new and interesting cheeses or ways of consuming cheese.  

Along the way I have been lucky enough to judge at a couple of international cheese awards, and multiple times at the New Zealand Champions of Cheese Awards.  The great thing about this is that usually Sandi is there by my side, either as a judge or as a steward tasting the same cheeses "out the back".