Keep on truckin’: how Mathew Carver has hailed cheese from road to restaurant

The Cheese Truck is marking a decade spent on the road evangelising about artisanal British cheese. Its journey began 10 years ago in London, after Mathew Carver had abandoned a career in furniture design to sell food at festivals for someone else’s business. Upon striding out on his own, with just £3k of funds, he eventually took to the road in an old ice cream van, selling fancy toasties. From there, he eventually added a restaurant, The Cheese Bar, and now has six sites in London and North Yorkshire.

How did it all begin – and why? We started The Cheese Truck in 2014 with the aim of championing British cheese. So, we worked with lots of small producers. The truck was our starting place, and the idea was to create really incredible grilled cheese sandwiches that used these really great British cheeses but served in a bit more of a fun and interesting way.

Where did the truck go first? We primarily did music festivals – from Glastonbury to Wilderness. We also got asked to take it to the Middle East to do some stuff over there for three winters in a row and did some music festivals in France and some other projects in Turkey. So, the truck does get about.

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How did you build your supply base? When we first started, we contacted producers directly but as we built up momentum people started coming to us. The artisan cheese world is very small and everyone knows everyone.

How reliable is the truck? It’s about 52 years old, so not the most reliable. Many times we’ve had calamities. Once, we were driving back from Green Man Festival in Wales when one of the wheels came off.

What is it that makes British cheeses a passion? When I started this 10 years ago, I asked lots of my friends, ‘What are your favourite cheeses?’. All of them could name more European cheeses than British, and I thought that was wrong. People should take more interest in cheeses made in this country, especially when they’re so good. And it’s important to support the rural economies that make up this country.

What makes British cheese so great? One of the really positive things about cheese making in the UK is we have embraced a lot of creativity – because we are not so bound by tradition and history in cheese making as in parts of Europe. We have our territorial cheeses like cheddar, Wensleydale and stilton – which have a lot of history and heritage behind them – but apart from that, we’re quite open. It means we end up with so many different cheeses.

What are the biggest obstacles facing British cheese? When we first started, the price difference between UK and European cheese was massive. European cheese was really cheap and the British cheeses were a little more expensive. But we’ve definitely seen a post-Brexit price gap shrink. I do think more and more people will pay more for locally sourced produce.

What’s next? Definitely more restaurants. We believe the concept we do in Seven Dials, to pick a cheese from a conveyor belt, is a really strong concept to open more units – not just in London – to engage a new audience in British cheese.

What’s your favourite British cheese? It varies, but one of my all-time favourites is a Corra Linn – which is like a Scottish version of manchego, from Lanarkshire.