Ever since he graduated, Erik’s been a sought out adviser and has also held  down various positions within dairy companies in the Nordics, including in Iceland.

Goats can be pretty fun to watch as they climb just about anything, they’re incredibly curious, and, if you meet one, chances are it’ll approach you looking for food. At least in our experience. But what does it mean to care for your goats? Löt Gårdmejeri has over a hundred goats—all of whom have been individually named with names that match their personalities—and know a thing or two about what makes goats happy.

“If you take good care of your animals, you’ll have a good end product. Our goats get to roam freely outside and also have two barns—one colder and one warmer one. That way, they get to choose where they hang out.”

Erik also pointed out the importance of a good diet for the goats.

“Goat cheese should, naturally, taste like it came from a goat. But if you feed them too much protein to produce more milk, the milk will taste too much like goat (if you’ve ever smelled a goat, you know what intense goat flavor would be like). This is also why it’s important they feel calm and safe, or the milk they produce won’t taste right.”

We were keen to find out if the kids (baby goats) stayed with their mothers after birth.

“Yes, they stay with their mothers for about one and a half months during which time we only milk the goats once a day—the rest of the milk is needed for the kids. Then the kids start spending the night alone so we get some more milk from the mothers in the morning, but the kids rejoin their mothers after milking every morning. Then at about two and a half to three months the kids stop drinking the milk and go out onto the fields to enjoy summer with the small herd of cows we have. There’s nothing bad about keeping the kids with the mothers. In fact, that way you get more milk that way, not less.”  

While it’s harder to do something similar with cows, it’s possible and there are farms piloting various techniques where the calves get to stay with their mothers.

As you can tell, the goats are treated very well at Löt. And so far all the farmers we’ve interviewed have said the same thing—the happier the animals, the better the end product. 

Again, this echoes what Almnäs Bruk told us.

“We get on average 80,000-100,000 liters of milk per day from just over 100 goats. It takes 12 liters of milk to make one kg of goat’s cheese. When it comes to cow’s milk, you only need about 10 liters for one kg. And sheep’s cheese requires even less milk with only about six to seven liters per kg.”

“It’s not so easy to have a small dairy and turn it into a real business. It takes a lot of effort. A lot of work. I went to fetch cow’s milk at three am this morning. It’s now 12 pm and while I’m done with what I needed to do with the milk, I’m still not done for today. The last thing I’ll do before going to bed is to go outside and turn the cheese! You work around the clock. However, I’ve been on the industrial side of things and I’m not interested in that anymore. This is a good life. If someone stops by, I have a coffee with them. Explain what we do and why it’s important. I feel good. And my daughter and grandchildren come for visits. What’s more, we have eight “fjällkor” (a type of Nordic mountain cows) and in the end we aim to set up a restaurant on the farm with food from the farm. That’s why we have the cows, and, of course, to take good care of an old breed of cows and ensure the lineage continues.”

“Logistics. When we first started out, I had to drive to Stockholm and Göteborg to make deliveries and I’m needed on the farm! And when NOMA (the three star Michelin restaurant in Denmark) asked to use our butter, I had no idea how to ship it to them. It would have cost me over 3,700 crowns to send 25 kg of butter as I’d have to buy a much larger shipping space than I needed. So I posted on Facebook and someone suggested getting a pensioner take the train to Denmark, spend the day, and come back again. A ticket for a pensioner, at the time, was 500 crowns. So we did that once a month and the pensioners were really happy to get free trips to Denmark! Today there’s Bondens Skafferi which is a sort of middleman for a lot of farmers.”

“They called me back in 2012 and asked to taste our butter, but they were based in Stockholm. I thought, well, you know “källaren” (the basement)—it can't be a very nice restaurant. So I told him if he wanted to try our butter, he could go to Gothenburg and buy some. The line went silent. He finally told me he would speak to his boss about it. Thankfully, his boss recognized the name of the restaurateur in Gothenburg using our butter and said if it was good enough for him, it'd be good enough for them. They ordered ten kilos right off the bat, without tasting it first.”

“I like their standards apart from one thing—they don’t require the animals to be healthy. I wrote to them about this, because we wanted to be KRAV certified. But they didn’t make it a requirement that the goats are healthy, so we withdrew from it.”

What the sommelier who came to visit mentioned was that cheese that has high acidity (or just that little bit of a sour note) lowers the acidity in the wine and highlights the fruity notes. Likewise, a creamy cheese brings down the acidity in the wine. And sparkling and sweet wines work well with salty cheeses. In general, a mild cheese requires a mild drink. A fruity, but not sweet, Sancerre works well with blue cheeses. When there’s more saltiness and acidity in the cheese you want to have a fruity wine that isn’t sweet.

“I’ve seen a growing interest for Swedish cheese at the big “saluhallarna” (Swedish indoor food markets). However, the majority of the cheese is still imported.”

Löt Gårdsmejeri in cooperation with Tekniska verken (local power company) is about to have the grand opening of their goat electricity project in May 2024.
They’ve just installed massive solar panels in between where the goats roam freely.
“As restaurants will be able to buy power directly from us, they can now put up signposts that they aren’t only using our butter and cheese, but also our power!”

You don’t have to be royalty to come for a visit—the farm store is usually open when Björn or Erik are at home, but they recommend you call to check before visiting.
And the farm is always open once in spring and once in autumn for “vår och höst dagarna.” “It’s interesting when 3,000 people show up all at once! You can imagine! We have various market stands here during those days—people are selling sheep’s milk ice cream, cheesecake, jewelry made from flintstones, and so on. It’s very nice and people are generally in a really good mood. There’s also live Swedish folk music.”

Löt is a small goat farm and dairy in Sweden that’s garnered international attention due to its tasty cheeses and butters. Restaurants like NOMA and Zén (both awarded three Michelin stars) use their butter.

The farm’s owners insist that putting the animals’ well-being first is what leads to a great end product—the goats need to be calm and happy to produce great milk for great cheese.

One of the reasons they can create 60 different products is that they don’t homogenize the milk, meaning the fatty acids remain intact. By using different lactic acid bacteria and temperatures in the cheesemaking process they can then pick and choose what flavors they want to come out in the end product.

Producing cheese the old fashioned way also means there’s less lactose in the end product, meaning there’s less sugar and people who are lactose intolerant are more likely to be able to eat it (this is only matured cheese).

Erik thinks that Swedish cheese from smaller dairies is as good as the revered cheese coming from France and Italy, but that it needs to be highlighted more in the media and by shop owners and logistics need to improve for smaller farmers.