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The idea began with a craving for cheese. When founders Susie Martin and Rachel O’Shea moved to Luang Prabang, they found themselves in a country with plenty of buffalo but almost no dairy industry. The idea of making cheese from buffalo milk began with a simple question: why not use what was already around them?
Susie Martin, CEO, Director of Sales & Marketing at Laos Buffalo Dairy, shares that, “The abundance of buffalo was striking, particularly when set against the almost complete absence of locally produced dairy products. What began as curiosity gradually turned into an experiment in whether buffalo milk could support a dairy business.”
The first experiment involved renting a few buffalo from a farmer nearby. Nobody in the area had milked a buffalo before, so the process involved plenty of trial and error.
Back home, Rachel O’Shea, Head Chef, General Manager Production recalls getting a cheese starter kit from back home to begin experimenting with the milk and started by making small batches in her kitchen, learning how buffalo milk behaved and gradually working out what could be turned into cheese. With no formal cheesemaking background, she initially tried working with recipes designed for cow’s milk.
The early experiments were far from straightforward. Eventually, after seeking help, O’Shea got a buffalo mozzarella recipe from an Australian cheesemaker.
“That was the starting point,” she explains. However, the team still had to understand how their own buffalo milk behaved and how to adapt the process to their conditions. What started as a home experiment gradually became Laos Buffalo Dairy.
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