The most expensive cheese in the world is here and it’s made from donkey milk

If you’re into your cheese (and let’s face it, who isn’t?), you might think you’ve tasted all that the dairy world has to offer.

You know your goats cheese from your ricotta. Your feta from your halloumi.
Which is why you’ll be interested to hear that the world’s most expensive cheese is the next big thing 

Each kilogram of cheese is made from 25 litres of donkey milk, which can cost up to £40 per litre.

To put that in perspective, one kilogram of cheddar needs 9.5 litres of milk (which cost around 30p each).

Only around 20 donkeys on the farm produce milk at any one time – part of the reason why it’s incredibly rare and expensive to produce.

According to Slobodan, another reason it’s so difficult to get hold of pule (that’s what the cheese is called) is that donkey’s milk doesn’t have enough casein (which is what makes milk thicken into curd) to make cheese the traditional way.

He’s got a secret method for getting round the problem but it takes time and he claims that his farm is the only one who knows how to make cheese out of donkey milk.

Of course, Slobodan Simic is very sure of his view and it was even rumoured that tennis player Novak Djokovic bought the entire global stock.

But others, like French donkey farmer Jean-Francois Wanbeke, told Modern Farmer that he’s less than convinced:

He has tried to make it, think it’s pretty impossible to make it and is not even sure cheese is the right word.

‘We tried only once to make cheese,’ he said.

‘It took a lot of milk and we only got a tiny amount that resembled goat milk cheese, but I’m not sure I would even call it a real cheese.’
Price tag and rarity aside, the key thing about this cheese are the supposed health benefits that are attached to it.

It’s exceptionally high in protein, calcium and omega 3 fatty acids – all crucial for maintaining good cardiovascular health.