Buf Creamery, a Columbia cheesemaker, is best known in the United States for their mozzarella di bufala and burrata. They use traditional farming practices with little tweaks to make delicious cheese including ricotta, halloumi, and even yogurt.
Origin Story
The brand’s origin story links to an idea that came to the founders while riding horses on their farm and seeing the buffaloes grazing on the pasture. Located in Cundinamarca,
Colombia, the farm was an RSPO certified palm oil plantation that used male buffalos as draft power. Meanwhile, the female buffalos were just grazing on the open pastures. Alejandro Gomez Torres, president, and co-founder explains, “The females were just grazing so we decided to milk them and take advantage of their high-quality milk.” 100% of the cheese is made from buffalo milk.
Buf Creamery Cheeses
All their cheese is vegetarian and lactose-free. They make the cheese with only vegetarian rennet. The brand explains that since they produce mozzarella using natural acification, during the culturing with the right ferments and at the right temperature, lactose is transformed into lactic acid and water. Bufalo milk cheeses have gained attention for being delicious, while higher in fat, they are surprisingly lower in cholesterol than cow’s milk.
But the process was not easy to make mozzarella. They got the idea in 2006 but it took two to three years to get quality milk to make the mozzarella and it was not until 2010 that they brought their product to market. Four years later, the creamery brought the bufala and mozzarella to the United States and introduced their other cheeses including ricotta the following year.
The cheesemaker first sold through Whole Foods, who were hesitant, Gomez Torres says. Distribution started growing region by region each month until 2015, they had nationwide presence. Now the cheese can be found outside of Whole Foods too, at local cheese shops.
Gomez Torres explains that it was a challenge to make the cheese and “maybe if we knew how challenging this startup would be we would have walked away. Persistence from our main goal of generating and producing. Deliciousness kept us focused.” But while buffalo are picky, “learning from them has been the best.”
While making cheese from buffalos has its difficulties, it has its benefits. When asked what his favorite part of the process is, Gomez Torres says, “The magic of stretching curd into mozzarella is the best part. [It’s] not always at the same time or with the same pH, but always beautiful to see and taste.”
Sustainable & Organic
Making cheese sustainably was just natural to Buf Creamery. The buffalo are free range with the calves right next to their mothers who are providing the milk that is the backbone of all their operations. They have 800 milking buffalo with 3,500 total buffalos on the farm. They do get milk from suppliers in the region, totaling 2,500 total milking buffalos.
Gomez Torres explains that they continued with traditional animal husbandry practices because it’s sustainable and how previous generations worked. He says, “Grass is what ruminants eat, mammals give milk because they have a baby and good conditions help animals relax and proliferate. Simple basic practices are the way to go.”
When the brand entered the US market, Gomez Torres said that as a Columbian farmer, it was really important that the cheese was made from free range grass fed buffaloes. But for him, it was natural. He explains, “I had never seen animals eat grain. We then profited from this and made emphasis on how animals should be raised. We then became organic and Non-GMO in no time. All linked to traditional but improved animal husbandry practices.”