The region of Macedonia has a tradition in the production of semi-hard cheeses, with the most important being Kaseri PDO. Other semi-hard cheeses are Victoria (no longer produced), Gai cheese, etc. In the past there were many dairies in Macedonia that produced only cheese. One of them was the old cheese factory of the Arvanitis family in Livadia, Kerkini.

The semi-hard cheeses are all produced in the pasta fillata style, ie stretched cheese curd. According to it, we produce baski from fresh milk, which we then “knead” in hot water and stretch it, again and again, until it reaches the desired texture.

On the other hand, smoking cheese was an element originally developed in Italy. In northwestern Italy they used to produce provolone cheese (also semi-hard cheese with pasta fillata style), and sometimes smoked it – both for the taste and for the preservation of the cheese. In the 1950s Evangelos Averoff sent Metsovites to Italy to learn new cheese-making techniques. Returning, they created the Metsovone cheese, which they produced with the technique of smoked provolone. It was the first time that smoking of cheese became known in Greece. Later, this cheese was included in the first PDO cheeses of Greece.

At the Fromagerie ARVANITI we combined these two elements of cheese-making: the Macedonian cheese -in the pasta filata style- and the smoking of the cheese -as we learned it through the Metsovites from the Italians. Using 100% local cow’s and goat’s milk and with the deep knowledge of cheese making, we have developed a cheese with a special taste and properties: the Smoked cheese of Thessaloniki.

An excellent cheese that has managed to get gold awards in every domestic cheese competition he participated in.