Itaru Hori expressed surprise when his goat’s milk cheese earned international accolades, but he also felt that the praise validated his lifestyle choice.

Hori, 36, opened Yozawa Goat Farm only five years ago on a hillside along a winding road in the mountainous Yozawa district of Akiruno, western Tokyo.

He entered his Yozawa Yagi (goat) cheese at the World Cheese Awards 2025 held in Bern, Switzerland, in November. He was participating for the first time in the annual competition, known as one of the world’s biggest cheese contests.

His product was selected as one of the Top 14 Cheeses out of 5,244 entries from 46 countries in the 37^th event.

One judge praised Yozawa Yagi cheese for the beautiful look of the rind, its silky and creamy texture and its exquisite balance of acid tastes.

Hori partially relies on lactic acid bacteria to coagulate and ferment goat milk into a white and round cheese product, which looks like dehydrated and dried yogurt.

SEEKING SIMPLE LIFE

Hori and his family in 2020 moved to an area of the Yozawa district where cellphone signals are not readily reachable.

The farm currently keeps 27 goats, including 12 does. After the mothers give birth in spring, Hori milks them manually and makes cheese until the end of autumn.

He has converted an old shed into a studio, where he heats goat milk over a bowl of hot water for low-temperature pasteurization.

He then adds lactic acid bacteria and an enzyme to coagulate the milk, removes water and splits the curd up into small round lots, which are matured for about 10 days.

All work is done manually with a small number of tools, including pots, soup socks for making soup stock and stone weights to make pickles.

“I want the process to be as simple as possible,” he said.

Hori began thinking about what type of life he wanted to pursue before his job-hunting activities as a university student.

“I wanted a form of life that would allow me to be on my own, uncontrolled by the trends in world affairs,” he said.

In his first year working after university, Hori watched a TV program about a dairy farmer who made cheese in Okayama Prefecture.

He became attracted to the farmer’s lifestyle, particularly the raw-materials-to-production process of grazing cows, gaining their milk and producing cheese.

Such work allows producers to show off their individuality and continue working for a lifetime by developing the skills they need, he said.

“But I wasn’t prepared mentally to take the plunge,” Hori said. “I thought I would go ahead only if I still wanted to do that work three years later.”

Hori continued working for a company and got married. He began taking steps toward his farming goal in 2016.

He studied cheesemaking at a farm in Shintoku, Hokkaido, for two years.

As a trainee there, he was told there were few goat cheese producers in Japan, meaning there was growth potential. Keeping goats also requires less equipment than raising cows, and goats can adapt to living on hillsides.

Hori looked for a land plot close to urban areas so customers could easily come to the farm to buy his cheese. He rented about 1 hectare and an old private residence in his native city of Akiruno.

Hori has gradually increased the herd size while living there with his wife and three sons.

With the milking season over, a laid-back atmosphere surrounded the winter farm

Hori said the basic outline of his farm operation has taken shape.

“I hope to be producing more varieties of cheese in the years to come,” he said.

He said a semi-hard cheese, which is matured over a longer time period, is on his mind.