Born and bred in Normandie – the home of Camembert – Valérie has now spent half her life in Australia.
In the early days, it was a case of bringing together the best of both worlds and with very little hesitation,
Valérie decided to take her destiny into her own hands and worked towards making sure she would get
one of the things she missed the most: le Fromage!
She naturally started to select a range of her favourite cheeses and put together a new importing business
involving air and sea-freight landing regularly in Australia. The focus was first on smaller French producers
and strong relationships have been developed over many years with frequent visits to various regions of
France and cheese shows. Valerie’s business rapidly expanded with more connections throughout
European countries, the UK and the United States.
Prompted by the desire to deliver cheese to the Australian consumers exactly the way their producers
intended, Valérie kept pushing the art of affinage and became instrumental in creating one of Australia’s
first high-tech caves to properly store and care for naturally rinded cheeses such as Comté, Beaufort,
Manchego and Cheddar.
Valérie now oversees the import of more than 12 tons of mainly European cheeses per month, distributing
Australia wide as well as selling it at the iconic Smelly Cheese Shop in the famous Adelaide Central Market.
In recent years, she has also focused more intensely on the education aspect of her work and has created a
series of cheese masterclasses that she now conducts nationally and internationally.
Valérie has been acclaimed locally through various awards and has been the recipient of the annual award
for outstanding contribution to gastronomy in South Australia in 2018 and received the French National
Order of the Agricultural Merit Award for her outstanding contribution to agriculture and promoting
French cheese in Australia in 2023.
Recently, Valérie was inducted into the Guilde Internationale des Fromagers in Paris as a recognition of her
work, passion and influential role in the world of cheese.