An Adelaide Hills artisan cheesemaker has taken home five Gold medals from one of Australia’s leading food competitions, with every single product it entered earning a medal.
Woodside Cheese Wrights achieved a 100 percent medal strike rate at the 2026 Melbourne Royal Australian Food Awards, adding another major accolade to what has already been an impressive year for the South Australian producer.
The five Gold-winning products span everything from triple cream cheese and buffalo feta to a brand-new cultured butter created in collaboration with acclaimed butter maker Pepe Saya.
For Director and Head Cheesemaker Kris Lloyd AM, however, the biggest achievement was not simply the number of Gold medals.
“Five Golds in one competition is incredibly exciting, but I think what means even more to me is the consistency across the whole range,” Kris said.
“Every cheese we entered came home with a Gold, Silver or Bronze medal. As a cheesemaker, that is enormously satisfying because one great cheese can sometimes be a wonderful moment in time; having the entire group recognised tells me that the quality and attention to detail within our cheesemaking team is really strong.”
Among the Gold winners was the Kris Lloyd Artisan Monet Cultured Butter, a new collaboration between Kris and her longtime friend Pepe Saya.
The cultured butter is finished with Kris’s own blend of dried flowers and designed to be used across everything from steak and roasted vegetables to mushrooms and omelettes.
Another Gold went to Woodside Cheese Wrights Patrice Triple Cream, with judges describing it as a “great example of a ripe, artisan white mould cheese” with a flavoursome centre and “big character”, before adding: “Hooray for Australian cheese!”
South Australian buffalo milk featured prominently among the winning products.
The Kris Lloyd Artisan Marinated Buffalo Cheese received Gold for its rich, creamy character, while the new Kris Lloyd Artisan Buffalo Feta also took the top medal.
The Buffalo Feta was originally developed for the US market and has a clean, milky and salty profile suited to dishes such as a classic Greek salad.
Rounding out the five Golds was Kris Lloyd Artisan Spilt Milk, a washed-rind table cheese with a soft, pliable texture, nutty flavour and plenty of depth.
For Kris, producing medal-winning cheese begins well before anything reaches the cheese room.
“Great cheese always starts with great milk,” she said.
Woodside works with South Australian cow, goat and buffalo milk, with Kris saying artisan cheesemaking relies on far more than simply following a recipe.
Each batch requires judgement around the feel of the curd, moisture, acidity, ripening, temperature and timing, alongside an understanding of how individual ingredients work with rather than overpower the cheese itself.
That approach has evolved over more than 30 years at Woodside Cheese Wrights, which was established in the Adelaide Hills in 1994.
Kris has also spent much of that time exploring what an Australian identity in cheesemaking can look like.
She began seriously incorporating native Australian ingredients into her cheeses around 2006, experimenting with flavours including native thyme, lemon myrtle, saltbush and bush tomato, alongside Australian flowers.
For Kris, however, creating a distinctly Australian cheese is about more than adding an obvious native ingredient.
“It is more about a sense of place and the confidence to tell that story,” she said.
“I think Australian artisan cheese has become much more confident. We don’t have to follow somebody else’s script anymore. We are writing our own.”
The Melbourne Royal result follows international recognition earlier this year, when Woodside Cheese Wrights secured Best in Class honours at the 2026 World Championship Cheese Contest in Wisconsin in the United States.
Despite more than three decades in the industry, Kris says having her work blind judged by experienced industry figures continues to matter.
“You never stop learning in this craft, and having your cheese judged blind by experienced judges is a very good reality check,” she said.
“And for me, five Gold medals for cheeses made here in the Adelaide Hills is a lovely little affirmation of that.”
The major trophy winners of the 2026 Melbourne Royal Australian Food Awards will be announced at Melbourne Showgrounds on September 30.
To buy your own award winning cheese, head to https://www.woodsidecheesewrights.com
