Helen and Richard Dorresteyne, founders of the Clevedon Farmers Market, are not you every-day run of the mill kind of people. To achieve what they have with the farmers market, and then Clevedon Buffalo is nothing short of remarkable. The world plucky comes to mind.

They observed a gap in the market, twice, and filled it successfully both times. Today you can buy their award winning range of buffalo milk cheeses and yoghurt at the farmer’s market they founded. In many ways, in doing so, the couple created a food destination, a regional delicacy – one that compliments other produce from the district such as lemons and oysters.

That their two businesses are in a symbiotic relationship is only natural. Helen says she needed cheese makers for the market, and there weren’t any, so they decided to do it themselves.

But to really set themselves apart in a local market that can be tough to survive in, they decided to become the first producers of buffalo milk cheeses in the country. “If you are a cows milk and goats milk cheesemaker, the ompetition is immense. But fresh buffalo milk is fresh buffalo milk and you can’t argue with that.”

They are certainly not people who do things by halves, and in many respects they exemplify the classic Kiwi entrepreneur, go getters who don’t sit around waiting for what they want to come them, but go out there and make it happen, while being ingenious and flexible along the way.

Buffalo mozzarella is famed and desired by cheese lovers the world over for its particularly creamy and smooth texture, wonderful on a pizza, exceptional in a caprese salad.

Sadly, most European cheeses sold in New Zealand are imported frozen and defrosted for sale in the supermarkets, Helen tells me. This might be a practical way to bring European cheeses to the Kiwi consumer, but it destroys the flavour and the texture of the buffalo mozzarella, she says.

But getting going on their dream of next-level cheese was hardly a walk in the park.

“There was no-one else doing buffalo milk cheese, so we had to find a herd of buffalo, and we did. We tracked down this guy called Buffalo Bill in Australia, and he was a great old digger.”

After eating bacon and eggs in 40 degrees-plus heat with Buffalo Bill and his wife, he showed Helen and Richard across his rugged outback farm to a herd of “completely feral water buffalo”.

“They were wild as buggery and more swamp buffalo than riverine water buffalo, which we actually milk. So we bought five of his animals and then we went to the government in the new territories and met a guy who had been crossing Asian swamp buffalo with the riverine, to create a meat brand. They couldn’t break into the meat industry, and they got closed out.”

One man’s loss was Helen and Richard’s gain, and they purchased 60 heads of nearly full riverine water buffalo, including four bulls, with the remainder being calf heifers. Then they had to import them in three separate shipments after three months of quarantine. They also had to write the protocol to import the animals, which was a massive task in itself, because it had never been done before.

“And then when we got them here, and first season we won all these awards. But we were actually only getting three litres a day from five animals and we were going broke in a hell of a hurry. But we had faith, and we loved farming and cheese,” Helen says.

That was in 2006, but since then, through a combination of genetic artificial intelligence, bringing semen in from Italy and selectively breeding, the couple have increased their buffalo milk production to about 450 litres a day, from 200 animals.

Inevitably technical and practical issues arose along the way, but there was no-one in New Zealand to ask for help or guidance – even when it came to something as rudimentary as veterinarian care.

A breakthrough came in 2008 when Helen and Richard attended a Buffalo congress in Italy, where they were able to not only visit 12 different farms, they were also able to work out what the best mix of feed was and ask as many questions as they wanted.

“For example, you can’t cut the horns off Buffalo because they important for the animals in order to sweat. So all of these things we had to learn the hard way, but we were lucky in Italy with the on-farm experience, and I met by chance a professor in the studies of mozzarella in Campagna.

He took us into the university to make cheese with him several times, and we just went back to school. Then we came home and made a very good mozzarella. There was no room to make a crap one and survive in our business.”

Helen says there are a couple of things they are very proud of. They have won awards for everything they have produced – no mean feat! And Clevedon Buffalo cheese is served on Air New Zealand business class, another great marketing opportunity.

While the company sells a lot of cheese at the farmer’s market and through a range of good stores across the country – places like Farro Fresh, Moore Wilson’s and Vetro, as well as a very healthy trade in restaurants – the products remain something most households would reserve for a special occasion, rather than an every day staple.

But word continues to get out, and the more people that know, the more people appreciate the quality of the products.

“Enough people come randomly to always be busy at the farmers market. Enough people have heard about it that, if they are having a dinner party, they will come for it. It gets very busy at Christmas.”