About Mons

Mons cheeses was founded in France by Hubert, now the grandfather of the Mons family. He began his career as a freight driver but always had a particular instinct for good food and whilst on the road, he showed a faculty for seeking out good cheeses, meats and wines.

His interest in food eventually superceded his driving work and in the 1960s, Hubert bought a plot of land in St Haon le Chatel in the East Loire. He built his family home and first cheese maturing rooms on the site. The cheese rooms comprised a refrigerated chamber and a cellar, both of which were built in what has since become a hall mark of the Mons family's cheese room design. The rooms were buried under earth to provide a natural insulation that required little recourse to refrigeration. This not only proved economical, but also allowed for minimal air currents around the rooms, giving ideal conditions for cheese ripening.
 
In the 1980s, Hubert's two sons Laurent and Herve joined the family business. Laurent took over the family shop - L'Auvergnat - in Roanne. Herve took over the cheese ripening, adding another large maturing room to the premises which was designed to keep slow ripening, cooked recipe mountain cheeses.

In 2007, an opportunity to expand into a disused railway tunnel in nearby Ambierle presented itself. Experiments began to test its potential for maturing tommes and other un-cooked, hard cheeses like Salers, Cantal and Laguiole. The results were successful and in 2010 the tunnel was fully converted and put to use.

The British arm of Mons cheeses began business in 2006. We import traditionally made cheeses from France & Switzerland, ripened in the cellars at St Haon le Chatel. We sell to shops and restaurants around the UK and work at several markets in London, principally at Borough Market and Spa Terminus, Bermondsey, SE1 - the base of our business.