28th November 2025
cheese culture
So much more than Wrångebäck: Value Creation at Almnäs Bruk.
“I don’t want to change the world—I want to change Almnäs.” In 1987, at just twenty-five, Thomas Berglund assumed responsibility for 3.500 hectares of land—now in the fourth generation of his family.
On the train ride from Gothenburg to Skövde, I am accompanied by countless birch trees, their shimmering white bark barely distinguishable from the frozen forest floor. It is only mid-November, yet Götaland already stretches out before me like a softly breathing icy landscape, a sunlit tableau of forests, red wooden houses, and glittering lakeshores.
In just about an hour, Thomas Berglund will be waiting for me at Skövde Central Station; afterwards, we will share a half-hour drive through this winter-bright world. Two weeks ago we heard of each other for the first time, a week ago we embraced at Cheese Berlin – and twenty minutes ago he called once more to apologize for the Swedish railway’s delay. If only he knew that in Germany, a three-quarter-hour delay still counts as an on-time departure.
What lies ahead is far more than just a visit to the Almnäs Bruk dairy: I will be spending a day on an estate whose roots reach back to the year 1225 – granting me the chance to step into another era. A day that shows that time does not simply pass in chronological order, but comes into being through shared experience: drawing from the past while shaping the future.
3.581 hectares counts the area of Almnäs Bruk, of which 1.985 are forests, 1.031 hectares are fields and pastures, 250 hectares of other land and 315 hectares of water. The main house is surrounded by an ensemble of old farm buildings: forge, granary, slaughterhouse, stables, and a former distillery.
Thomas greets me in dark brown corduroy, a red scarf, and—as I learn moments later in the car—a woolly, hand-knitted sheep’s-wool cap. “That’s as far as my knitting skills go,” he says with a laugh. And immediately the modest groundedness that defines him becomes clear: a landowner who lives with humility and resolve, intent on making a meaningful impact. Still in the parking garage, we already find ourselves talking—briefly—about values, value creation, and independence.
When I ask him at the start how he views the evolution of Västerbottensost, from a 19th-century farmhouse cheese into a modern supermarket staple, he answers calmly: “I don’t like talking about others. It wastes time and energy that I need for creativity. I focus on us and our cheeses. That’s the only way I can make a difference.” At that moment, I assume he’s referring to Sweden’s industrially shaped cheese culture in general. But then he adds: “I don’t want to change the world—I want to change Almnäs.”
In 1987, at just twenty-five, Thomas assumed responsibility for 3.500 hectares of land—now in the fourth generation of his family. Since then, he has guided the estate carefully yet determinedly away from supplying raw materials to the industry and toward becoming a genuine artisanal cheesemaking operation. “I’m trying to step out of the system so that we can regain control of our own destiny. That’s only possible if I can create value from the land entrusted to me—value that people actually want to buy.” Does he like the thought that his work—reviving the historic Wrångebäck, or creating new cheeses like Tegel and Anno 1225—has helped spark a Swedish cheese renaissance? Thomas chooses his words deliberately: “I prefer to say that Almnäs helped make it happen. I wasn’t alone. Yes, I initiated it, but—it takes a village to make good cheese. We are and will remain a family farm. My siblings had to walk this path with me, and from the start they placed great trust in me.”
The photograph from 1893 shows the oldest dated Wrångebäck, still from the time of the Swedish–Norwegian Union, as the flag indicates.
Which is why it matters deeply to Thomas to pair the vision of Almnäs with economic clarity. Ideals are a powerful engine, he says, but they cannot run an estate or pay wages on their own. “Only if we earn enough can we preserve this culture here.” Does he see himself as a custodian of Swedish culture? His answer ties directly to the motivation that led to the founding of the Nordic Cheesemongers in 2019: “I don’t think in national borders. I see myself more as a European. We don’t make Swedish cheese—we make cheese from Almnäs Bruk.” That is also why the Nordic Cheesemongers community is so important to him, an idea born during a long, late breakfast celebrating the dairy’s belated ten-year anniversary. Here, one can create synergies—and give something back. “You know, I’ve received so much support from outside all my life. I want to pass that on.” Unlike in industrial competition, artisanal producers have the ability, as he puts it, “to turn two and two into five.” “That’s our advantage over large-scale producers: we’re not in competition with one another. We’re not rivals—we’re rewriting the book of Nordic cheese culture together.”
We have driven barely twenty kilometres, and yet we are already immersed in such a wonderfully deep conversation that I hardly have time to appreciate the icy landscape of Skaraborg drifting past—this wide region between Falköping in the south and Mariestad in the north, nestled between the great lakes Vänern and Vättern. In a few minutes, I will stand on the shores of the latter, let my gaze drift across the quiet water, and—filled with a sense of awe—refocus entirely on my conversation with Thomas.
After many straight kilometres, we suddenly turn sharply left into a narrow avenue and come to a stop a few metres from the main house—the centre of an ensemble of old farm buildings: forge, granary, slaughterhouse, stables, and a former distillery. Today, much of it is dedicated to cheesemaking. It is one of those places where history has clearly been lived—and survived. Almnäs Bruk has existed since the 13th century. Cistercian monks likely used the estate as a retreat and to supply their monastery at Alvastra on the eastern shore of Lake Vättern. Over the centuries it passed through various noble families until it came into the Berglund family’s hands in 1916—where it remains to this day. In 1987, Thomas inherited responsibility for the estate—and with it a piece of Swedish cheese history: Wrångebäck, whose trademark was registered in 1889 as the first cheese brand in Sweden, and which became the first cheese in Northern Europe to receive protected designation of origin status. Only a small slice of an impressive history that, amidst this winter landscape, strikes me with quiet force.
In the anteroom of the distillery, the discarded wicker baskets for the Anno 1225 are stored—the ones that give the 4-kilogram loaves their distinctive pattern.
I leave my laptop and bag in the passenger footwell—our first stop is, of course, the dairy. There I meet cheesemakers Kerstin Johansson, Amalie Larsen, and Evelina Engstrand as they are cleaning up. In the ripening room for the Wrångebäck wheels, Thomas says a sentence that lingers: “You simply can’t pay good people well enough.” This spirit of appreciation permeates the entire place—toward the craft, the history, the people, and the animals. “We’re currently switching from Holstein to Brown Swiss,” he tells me. “Not only because my mother is Swiss and it fits our family history. Mainly because the Holstein breed preferred by the industry is not something we can be proud of. Brown Swiss give less milk, but the quality is incomparable.” Quality over efficiency, sovereignty over conformity.
We continue on to the former distillery where my personal favourite from Almnäs Bruk ages: Anno 1225. It matures separately from the other cheeses and is not washed in brine, because the local fungi and yeasts naturally form a uniform bloom. Every three to four days the wheels must be turned. The cool scent in the room instantly brings back the memory of my first bite of Anno at Cheese Berlin—a wonderful contrast to its fresh, delicate flavour, which earned it a gold medal at the 2012 World Cheese Awards in Birmingham. What fascinates me most about this cheese, however, are its cultural-historical roots. The form of Anno 1225 is shaped by a basket woven from willow twigs by Latvian basketmaker Astrida Smilktene—an exact reproduction of the baskets common here centuries ago. Some originals are on display at the regional museum in Skara. Others, worn and full of history, stand in the anteroom of the distillery. One of them I am actually allowed to take home.
I ask him candidly whether the story of Anno and its willow basket isn’t, at the end of the day, mostly marketing. Thomas smiles. “You know, I’m not good at painting or music, and I have no other artistic talent. But cheese and Almnäs give me a way to be creative. I find inspiration in the history of this farm. That’s my way of creating something.” In that way, he says, even a nearly four-kilogram wheel can gain more weight through the story it carries. “Because for all our ethical and moral aspirations, it’s crucial that the estate is run sustainably. Only then can I pay wages that my roughly thirty employees more than deserve. Only then can I have old windows restored by local craftsmen. And only then can I support a Latvian basketmaker who quite literally gives our Anno its defining pattern.”
Almnäs' Tegel is a hard-pressed “scalded” cheese, its square shape inspired by the handmade bricks manufactured by the Almnäs brick factory from the 1750’s onwards. On the rind, you can see the imprint of a small child’s foot, a historical reference to real footprints found in the brick floor in the attic of the manor house. Hundreds of years ago as the bricks dried in the sun, the farm workers’ children ran over them, leaving their footprints.
From that moment on, Thomas insists on carrying the retired willow basket for me. And so we stand—he, the basket, and I—on the shore of Lake Vättern, right beside the small guesthouse that allows visitors to stay far longer than my all-too-brief hours here. And as though all I have seen and heard were not already enough of a gift, the next surprise follows. Thomas glances at his watch and says, “We have to hurry—the food is ready!”
So we rush off—no time for questions—straight from the lakeshore up to the manor house and hang our winter coats on the rack. We climb the narrow wooden staircase into the Berglund family’s private living flat. Flat feels almost like an understatement: I step into an impressive world of bygone times, adorned with gilded paintings, heavy purple carpets, and glittering chandeliers. As I am still taking in this tasteful historical aesthetic, the scent of freshly cooked food reaches me. “My wife Birgit has cooked for us. Let’s eat quickly before it gets cold,” Thomas says. In this moment of pure hospitality, it strikes me once again how deeply appreciation and value creation intertwine at Almnäs Bruk—a mindset permeating every gesture.
When we sit down at the table, twenty-seven-year-old daughter Maria lights candles and joins us. Our shared language is—like everywhere on the farm—English: a way of relating that transcends borders. Birgit is from Norway, Thomas’s mother is from Switzerland, and Maria speaks several languages. English is the natural common ground. We speak about the monarchy and about Victoria and Daniel’s visit to Almnäs Bruk, about the rise of far-right movements in Europe and beyond, about the future of the estate in Maria’s hands—the “Victoria of Almnäs”—and of course about what unites all of us at this table: a love for a product that embodies real craft, history, and community.
Not only Thomas' work! During the helping hands in packaging, Modra Beržiņa and Krists Poots, prepare cheeses for the hungry crowd, Kerstin Johansson, Amalie Larsen, Thomas and Evelina Engstrand are smiling into my camera.
I ask Thomas how his artisanal cheese is received in Sweden today—and why so much of it goes abroad, to Germany, Austria, France, and even Canada. He grins mischievously: “Well, because it’s fun to send my cheeses out into the world.” His language skills—Swiss German, English, French, among others—certainly help him in international exchange. For a long time, he also assumed that the premium market in Sweden would quickly reach its limits and that he needed to spread the risk. “But when people here heard that we were, for example, listed at Harrods in London, interest suddenly surged.”
We talk about the value of international travel—for employees as well—about global networks built at trade fairs, and about the difference that true craftsmanship makes in a broader cultural-historical context. And halfway through our delicious lunch—nutty squash from their own garden, fresh salad, and a creamy, cheesy porcini risotto—I find myself thinking: I never want this day to end.
One of the many restored attics at Almnäs Bruk is now used for events with customers or private dinner gatherings with invited guests. Even Crown Princess Victoria and her husband Daniel have already visited — and left their mark!
But it must, as my return trip to Gothenburg is already booked. Still, one crucial question remains: Where does he see Swedish cheese culture heading? “Our cheese culture is still very young, and right now we’re in a phase where we’re growing out of mere experimentation and imitation,” Thomas says. For him, there is a fine line between cheeses that want to be “just like something” and those that are “inspired by something.” His Tegel, for instance, is inspired by a Gruyère—“but it has its own identity, its own flavour, a new story.” That Swedish cheesemakers are slowly moving beyond imitation and toward a true signature style—with historical roots, external influences, and plenty of individual personality—is, in his eyes, an essential, if overdue, development.
Thomas and I lose track of time so thoroughly that, on the drive back, he takes a rather generous interpretation of the speed limit to make sure I catch my train. I do—though I almost wish I didn’t. On the platform, we promise to see each other again soon—and that this is only the beginning of a closer connection between Germany and Scandinavia. Did I get a good impression of him and of Almnäs Bruk? I give him a small, grateful squeeze on his hand-knitted cap. In that moment, there is truly nothing more to say.
Almnäs Bruk
Almnäs bruk, 54494Hjo, Sweden
website: www.almnas.com
instagram: www.instagram.com/almnasbruk