25th November 2025
cheese culture
In the Land of Sagas and Stories: Eirný's Seven Super Heroes.
Eirný Sigurðardóttir is a well-known expert in the international cheese world, recognized for her sparkling personality and her great passion for showcasing her country’s cheese renaissance.
She is, in many ways, the screenwriter of a new and beautifully aged chapter in Iceland’s young cheese history—and the leading actress within it: Eirný Sigurðardóttir, the woman whom her friend Trevor Warmedahl once, with a wink, crowned the “Iceland Cheese Queen.” Warmedahl, himself an internationally known cheese philosopher and advocate of artisanal craftsmanship, saw early on what Eirný would become: the pioneer of a movement.
In a country whose dairy and cheesemaking traditions had long lain dormant, she has managed to awaken true cheese craftsmanship—guided by respect for nature, for animals, and for the nearly forgotten methods of Iceland’s rural past. Yet when asked who the real heroes of this rebirth are, she doesn’t name herself. Instead, she humbly points to “my seven Super Heroes”—the cheesemakers who, over the past decade, have sparked Iceland’s cheese renaissance with passion and courage.
Stories of the super heroes makes her “bubble like a volcano.” Because that, above all her many roles, remains her favorite: to talk about the wonderful new Icelandic cheeses “which are currently coming up in my country and which are writing cheese history.” Here for instance at Cheese Berlin 2025 (r.).
More Than Just Skyr
Because Iceland can do so much more than Skyr—the “marketer’s dream” that has become a global bestseller as a high-protein, low-fat wonder. And yet, real Icelandic Skyr has little in common with the “Skyr-style” products lining supermarket shelves abroad.
Traditional Skyr is made exclusively from the milk of Icelandic cows. The result, tangy and rich like German quark, is no yogurt at all. Its making follows an ancient, almost ritual process: fresh milk is gently warmed to body temperature and inoculated with a spoonful of Skyr from the previous day. As it thickens and sours, it’s left to drain in linen cloths, then pressed until firm. The dense curd is loosened again—traditionally with milk, or, when times were lean, with water.
Twice a year, in December and March, craft businesses from Iceland come together under one roof in Reykjavik to seek direct contact with customers. Due to a lack of infrastructure and small production volumes, the craft businesses sell almost exclusively from regional markets.
A Return to the Source
Perhaps it was this deep-rooted connection to Iceland’s milk culture that led Eirný Sigurðardóttir to write her own chapter in it. Raised in Tanzania, Kenya and Nigeria, she spent nearly two decades in Edinburgh—working in restaurants and fine food shops, always close to good ingredients.
In Edinburgh, she worked as a cheesemonger, a chef, and a teacher at the Edinburgh School of Food and Wine. She founded a catering company and an olive wholesale business, sold at farmers’ markets, and held exclusive catering contracts — for example, at the 600-year-old Invercauld Castle in the Royal Deeside — before running a city-centre bar for six years. But the longing for real craftsmanship and milk with provenance eventually drew her back to Reykjavík.
There, she opened Búrið, Iceland’s first independent cheese shop—a small revolution in the far north. Soon after she founded the country’s largest farmers’ market, a meeting place for producers, cheese lovers, and the simply curious.
Today, Eirný is regarded as the voice of Iceland’s new dairy culture. She champions heritage breeds, exceptional milk quality, and the sense of community that binds it all. Her expertise is sought after internationally—most recently as a judge at the World Cheese Awards. “I’ve been in the cheese business for thirty years,” she says. “It’s surreal that people are interested in me—but lovely. I just love talking about the cheese of my homeland.”
A Milk Story
For decades, Iceland’s cheese landscape was a uniform yellow: industrial, abundant, interchangeable. Yet the nation’s 400,000 inhabitants consume more cheese, milk, and butter per capita than many other Western countries.
“Our cheese story is really a milk story,” Eirný explains. Some 150 years ago, sheep’s milk—richer in fat—was the more valuable resource. But in the early 20th century, sheep dairying gave way to meat production, and cows took over as the island’s main milk suppliers.
The Icelandic cow is a unique settler breed, isolated on the island since the ninth century. Its milk is unusually sweet and rich, ideal for making cheese of remarkable depth and quality. Yet until 1987, Iceland enforced a strict import ban on cheese, and to this day, producing raw milk cheeses for commercial sale remains illegal.
For decades, Iceland’s cheese landscape was a uniform yellow: industrial, abundant, interchangeable. Meanwhile, the range of cheese colors is becoming more nuanced again—thanks in part to a revival of traditional craftsmanship and greater diversity in terms of milk.
More Color in the Monochrome
The Icelanders’ appetite for cheese, their innate curiosity, and a steady rise in tourism have brought new color to the old uniform yellow. Alongside the industrial products of the large cooperative Mjólkursamsalan, a growing number of small producers are stepping up—meeting the lack of infrastructure with courage and creativity.
Among them is Ann-Marie Schlutz, who crafts Feta-style cheese from Icelandic sheep’s milk on her farm Sauðagull—a distinctly Nordic take on a Mediterranean classic. The German-born cheesemaker has lived in Iceland since 2016 and sells sheep’s milk ice cream from a food truck near the Hengifoss waterfall during the summer months.
Then there’s Jóhanna B. Þorvaldsdóttir, who for more than 30 years has been saving Iceland’s near-extinct goat breed on her farm Háafell in Borgarfjörður, West Iceland. Thanks to her efforts, the population has grown from just 80 animals to over 1,500—a success sustained in 2014 by an international crowdfunding campaign. “Fascinating, isn’t it?” Eirný smiles. “That Icelandic cheese craftsmanship often gains more visibility abroad than support at home.”
And finally, Stefania Hjördís Leifsdóttir and the Ríkharðsson family from Brúnastaðir, who began making cheese from their goats’ and sheep’s milk in 2020. In summer, they milk around 70 goats and 40 sheep that graze freely in the mountains of Tröllaskagi by the sea. Their signature cheese, Brúnó, a firm cheese aged for at least three months, captures the terroir of its landscape—salted sea air, wild herbs, and stone.
Such stories, says Eirný, make her “bubble like a volcano.” Because that, above all her many roles, remains her favorite: to talk about the wonderful new Icelandic cheeses “which are currently coming up in my country and which are writing cheese history.”
Ann-Marie Schlutz selling her sheep’s milk ice cream in a truck at Hengifoss (l.); Jóhanna Þórvaldsdóttir cuddling her goats at Háafell farm in Borgarnes (m.); Stefania Hjördís Leifsdóttir and Eirný cuddling each other at Brúnastaðir (r.).
Cheese with a Story
In the land of sagas and myths, storytelling has always held power—even in cheese. To sell cheese in Iceland is to tell a story: of the farm, the animals, the landscape. Pleasure here is not only a matter of taste, but of imagination.
Elves, fairies, gnomes, and trolls populate Iceland’s folklore—and even in the Saga of Grettir, Skyr makes an appearance as a weapon of insult. So it’s little surprise that the country’s new cheesemakers weave narratives into their creations. “Storytelling builds trust,” says Eirný. “It connects cheese with emotion, with season, with origin—and makes it accessible, especially for the newcomers on the market.”
Cheese Is Female
Curiously, six of her seven “Super Heroes” are women. Why? Eirný laughs. “Of course! Cheesemaking is something inherently feminine. While the men were out in the fields, the women stayed home and tended the milk—the source of life. We’ve always been the ones to turn it into something. And now, we’re writing Iceland’s milk story anew.”
The movement, she says, is reminiscent of Norway’s cheese awakening—“just a few years behind.” Despite growing diversity, Iceland still faces structural challenges: the legal ban on raw-milk cheese, the dominance of the major cooperative, and limited distribution networks make access to the market difficult. Farmers’ markets therefore remain essential—those lively spaces where handmade cheese is sold directly, and its stories continue to ripen.
Goat cheese producer Þorbjörg Ásbjörnsdottir at Geitagott in the west of Iceland (l.) is another example of Eirný 's seven super heroes, six of them are female.
Between Tradition and Transformation
For all its progress, Iceland’s cheese landscape is still maturing under challenging conditions. The national cooperative shapes the flavor of the market, the raw-milk ban limits creativity, and on this vast, sparsely populated island, the path from stable to cheese counter is a long one.
That’s why farmers’ markets remain Iceland’s true chambers of ripening and trust. Here, producers and cheese lovers meet, taste, debate, and share. “There’s a lot happening right now,” says Eirný. “People are rediscovering their own milk, their animals, their craft. And that’s the beginning of everything.”
And when you see her in Reykjavík, standing among wheels of cheese and curious visitors, offering samples and speaking with shining eyes about texture, aroma, and maturity, it’s clear: for Eirný, cheese is more than a product. It’s a living process—complex, unpredictable, and always evolving. Much like Iceland itself.
Eirný Sigurðardóttir (ISL)
instagram: www.instagram.com/icelandcheesequeen