cow cheese
Camembert 5 frères
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The project
Adopt a cow from our flock "Camembert 5 frères" in Bermonville (France) and receive your harvest in the form of cow cheese at home. The Farmer Charles will take care of your adoption and take its picture. Also, you will be able to download the adoption certificate and, if you wish, plan your visit to the farm. As the production coming from one cow is big, the adoption is shared between various people. If you wish to have a bigger share, you may adopt more than once. You do not enter into any long-term commitment: once you receive your harvest and you enjoyed the experience, you may decide to renew and extend the adoption.
What do you adopt?
Adopt a cow from our farm in Bermonville (France). The CrowdFarmers will adopt cows of the Normande and Pie Rouge breeds producing quality milk to be processed into camembert.
The Normande is, as its name suggests, the traditional breed of Normandy, with which raw milk camembert is historically made. Norman cows, recognizable among all the others by their “brown glasses” around the eyes, produce a milk that is rich in fat. The Pie Rouge also has a brown and white coat. Its milk is a little less rich and therefore balances the overall fat of our product.
Camembert 5 Frères is made with milk coming exclusively from the farm. Each cow produces around 7,000 litres per year, representing around 3,500 camemberts. The cows are raised and fed only from the farm's vegetal productions (alfalfa, hay, pasture, green feeding when possible). They are raised with great care and attention. After spending 5-6 years on the farm, cows are valued for their meat. The female calves are all kept on the farm for the renewal of the herd while the male calves are sold around a month of age. The core farm where the breeding and processing take place has an area of 2 hectares. As for the vegetal feed productions, they spread on an area of 250 hectares.
The productive life of a cow is around 6 years. For as long as you want to keep it and we can continue taking care of it, you can renew your adoption year after year. If your cow dies, we will replace it with no additional cost and assuring the delivery of your production from other animals.
Each cow is adopted by 250 CrowdFarmers who receive a box with 1 kg of cow cheese.
What will you receive?
Each season we will send you a box with:
4 x __camembert__ (250g / pack)
CrowdFarmers will receive a box of 4 camemberts with different levels of refinement thus enabling CrowdFarmers to savour camemberts at different stages. Camembert cheese can be consumed from around thirty days after production, it is then said to be semi-refined and is white in colour. The more the cheese evolves, at low temperature (6-8 ° C), the more the hay and fresh grass aromas develop; small brownish spots appear on the cheese periphery.
Camembert consumption can go up to 60 days after the production date for a unique tasting experience! To summarize, there are 3 technical refining stages: 1/2, 3/4 and 4/4 refined. These stages correspond to the proportion of creaminess when the camembert is cut. Ultimately, the more the camembert matures, the greater the proportion of creaminess.
Production is traditional: the camembert is made from raw milk, ladle-moulded by hand. The CrowdFarmers are thus assured of tasting a 100% Norman product whose traceability is perfectly guaranteed. Camemberts can be stored at 8-10°C for 2 to 3 weeks.
When will you receive it?
Please, check the deadline for participating in this project (deadline for adoption) below. As of this date the Farmer will start preparing the orders that are to be shipped.
You may select the delivery date of your box as suggested by the Farmer at check-out.
The CrowdFarmers will be able to receive camemberts all year round, there is a daily and regular production of milk throughout the year, hence a daily production of the cheese.
Why should you adopt?
* Learn who produces your food, how and where. Receive your food in a conscious manner.
* Buy directly from the farmer. Help to generate wealth and better jobs in the rural areas.
* Plan ahead and enable the Farmer to produce on demand. This way we can avoid overproduction and fight food waste.
* Reward Farmers who make an effort to use environmentally-friendly packaging and cultivation techniques.
Small Farm
BPA-free
Farmer 360
How does it work?
Meet the Farmers
Adopt and plan your harvest
Let the Farmer and nature work
Receive your harvest at home
Environmentalist
Experienced Farmer
BPA-free
Farmer 360
Harvest analysis
Young Farmer
Small Farm
Family Farm
Visitors welcome
Additional analyses
Charles Bréant
I am the initiator of the camembert production, but I’m also strongly supported and accompanied by my brothers and our technical partners. I was born on this farm and after getting my education I decided to settle here and process the milk. I deeply believe that farmers have an important role to play in providing quality products to their customers and improving the impact on the environment; this is the reason why we decided to process milk on our farm with an aim of reducing our CO2 emissions, while developing added value and supporting local employment.
Right after my agricultural engineering diploma, I worked 4 years in 2 different companies (an audit firm and a bank) in order to acquire the basics of business management and teamwork, before returning to the farm in 2015. These different experiences are now useful for me to carry out the project and continue to improve the quality of our camemberts.
A typical day begins at 6 a.m. simultaneously with cow milking and camembert making (with 24-hour matured milk). The moulding and other work on the cheeses end around midday. As for the milking, it ends at 8 a.m., the facilities must then be cleaned and the animals fed. The afternoon is devoted to preparing orders, turning the cheeses and working in the fields depending on the weather and the season.
I like to produce and market a unique product that we develop on the farm. It’s a great satisfaction to be able to offer a camembert to CrowdFarmers directly via CrowdFarming. I also like the diversity of my activity and the alternation of seasons which offers incredibly beautiful landscapes.
Charles Bréant
"Passionate about their profession, each brother is keen to give the best of himself to provide eco-responsible CrowdFarmers with a unique camembert. By adopting our cows, CrowdFarmers contribute to the preservation of our fragile ecosystem…"
Camembert 5 frères
Camembert 5 frères
5 Frères Camembert is the recent fruit of an old family history added to the siblings’ desire to produce a farmer camembert independently. The farm, located in the village of Bermonville in Normandy, was created in the 1950s by the 5 brothers’ grandparents and was then taken over in the 1980s by their parents. It was in 2016 that the 5 brothers (Charles, Pierre, Victor, Côme and Martin) decided together to process part of the milk to make camembert.
In this operation, each brother has its field, according to his affinities and skills.
Alix and Laurent, the parents, support their sons in the various activities.
Charles is responsible for the transformation of milk into camembert, Pierre is responsible for the production of milk and herd monitoring, Victor is in charge of the production of vegetal crop, Côme at this stage is a versatile employee on the farm and Martin will soon complete his agricultural studies. 4 committed and skilled employees complete the team.
On the farm, as is typical in the environment of our agricultural region, we produce wheat, flax, beets, rapeseed, carrots, potatoes, alfalfa, hay and corn. On the farm we have 4 employees, one for breeding and 3 new hires for the processing of milk, who were previously unemployed and who live a few kilometres from the farm.
Our herd lives in a very comfortable stable which we refurbished 5 years ago. With a thick mattress for each cow and a mulching of grass once a day. Our herd grazes in the fields 8 months of the year. Outside our cows mainly graze on grass. We supplement the grass supply that we cut daily on our plots near the farm. This guarantees a diet of high nutritional quality. In the winter, the cows stay warm in the barn.
We don’t have any irrigation system, it is only thanks to the rainfall that we can produce.
Regarding crop production, we are gradually developing organic farming (2 crops this year, 3 next year).
To promote biodiversity, hedges and trees are regularly planted. This year we just invested in a micro-anaerobic digestion system to recover the biogas produced by the cows, which supplies a boiler to be used to heat the cheese dairy. The projects we are developing aim to increase the economic, social and environmental sustainability of the farm.
If we ever have unsold camemberts, we ship them through a network of solidary grocery stores so that the cheeses aren’t wasted.
Technical information
Address
Camembert 5 frères, Bermonville, FR
Altitude
100m
Team
4 men and 3 women
Size
250 Ha
Flock size
180
Location