The story told by our different types of cheese starts in the pastures on which our cows feed, and ends at the good time you have when enjoying them. Between both moments, there is a chain of respectful work from the people and the earth..

HISTORY

The history of cheese in La Suerte Estancia is deeply linked to the way of being and the habits and customs of the Lacau family. The creation of the brand could not be explained without the combination of several elements : on the one hand, the passion of the heads of the family for good cheese; and on the other hand, the relationship with a key agent of the project, an absolute expert on the matter; finally, the vigorous impulse which the younger generation has given the family businesses and its consequent incursion into new markets.

Pedro Lacau’s love for cheese goes back a long way – probably, as a legacy from his Basque-French ancestors. Interested in the process, curious and enterprising, he started long ago to take advantage of his periodical visits to Europe and to go deeper into the world of cheese. In several opportunities he took courses, such as in Saint Lo, Normandy. Already with some basics, he ventured into the first steps. “As luckily these went wrong, he evolved”, jokes his wife Isabel, life long wholehearted companion, while showing photographs proving those home made tests. Meanwhile, his brother-in-law, Pablo Battro, Isabel´s brother, was treading his own path with this delicacy. A road which- experimental at the beginning – would in time become professional.

Battro is an industrial engineer, and for many years he dedicated himself to the establishment of industries in Puerto Madryn. Later on, he became acquainted with INTA and studied Agronomy and worked in the development of lamb dairy projects in the South of our country. From his home in Trelew, where he lived for a long time, he started exploring the elaboration of cheese: and he did well. From home consumption he started giving them out to friends and then, little by little, he started selling. He thus established La Mariposa, a brand which achieved some prestige in Patagonia, and which he improved with his ever more frequent trips to the world´s cheese centers. Battro won several scholarships to learn more about this métier in remote towns of Holland, France, England and Italy, where the most renowned cheese masters unveiled to him the secrets of each variety. And he himself became a referent in the matter, a role he has played since then, and the one in which he still persists, channeling a strong vocation for the transmission of the cheese culture he so much admires. Pablo Battro’s know-how, obtained in years of learning and experimentation, has proved to be a key element in the foundation of La Suerte.

In 2001, Pedro Lacau’s son decided to give credit to his father’s intention of “making good cheese, so as to eat good cheese”. And, in the midst of a particularly restless National panorama, he conducted the initiative of creating a new business unit of the family enterprise. Naturally, one of the first measures was to seek his uncle’s advice for the project. Thus, the team working at present began to take shape.

The first factory was established in a building already existing in the Estancia; it was small, with capacity for processing 300 litres of milk daily. Undoubtedly, that was an experimental phase of the project, a stage which provided a solid basis for the ones that would follow. Meanwhile, the dairy farm destined to the production of cheese was undergoing a series of improvements tending to optimize the quality of the milk.