Boerderijwinkel Hoeve Ackerdijk

Hoeve Ackerdijk is an organic dairy farm in the Ackerdijkse polder between Delft and Rotterdam, where about 60 dairy cows graze 44 hectares of extensively managed grassland and the milk is made into cheese on the farm.

The herd is a mix of Montbéliarde, pure MRIJ and pure Blaarkop cows, chosen because they give milk on the polder's own grass rather than bought-in feed. The farm has worked organically since 1998, with no artificial fertiliser, no pesticides and no preventive antibiotics, and it is certified organic (SKAL); we found it in the register. Once a week the first 500 litres of the morning milk go to a mobile cheese dairy, which makes about 50 kilos of cheese, ripened on wooden boards from a few weeks to over a year, plus a cumin cheese. The milk is pasteurised, so the cheese isn't boerenkaas (raw-milk farm cheese). The hens run free during the day and go into their run at night, and a few times a year a cow is slaughtered: the beef is sold frozen, and in 6 or 10 kilo packs that include shin (schenkel).

The farm shop opens on Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings. Newsletter subscribers hear when a cow has been slaughtered and can reserve a meat pack to collect from the shop.

The herb- and clover-rich meadows are managed for meadow birds such as godwit and lapwing.