Andechser — Organic Before Organic Was a Word

An independent profile. bavariancheese.com is not owned by or affiliated with any cheesemaker — including this one.

Why this maker matters

Andechser describes itself as Germany’s largest 100% organic dairy — and it got there without ever being fashionable about it. The Scheitz family’s cheesemaking story, as the company tells it, begins in 1908; the dairy went organic as a matter of course, not marketing. It’s also one of the only scaled Bavarian makers doing serious goat-milk cheese.

The story

The Molkerei was founded in 1908, and today it’s led by Barbara Scheitz — still family-owned, with around 212 employees processing some 146 million kilos of milk a year (135 million cow, 10.5 million goat) from 665 regional organic farms.

The organic commitment isn’t a product line; it’s the whole company — Germany’s largest dairy operating 100% organic. And the goat-milk program is genuinely unusual for Bavaria: 100 goat farms supplying around 10.5 million kilos of milk a year, in a region where goat cheese is otherwise a farm-gate curiosity.

The cheeses

“Andechser Natur” organic yogurts — the flagship line (yogurt-first, but the range runs deep)
Bergkäse, Schnittkäse, cream cheeses — the organic cheese core; Allgäuer Bergkäse →
Goat-milk line — fresh and soft goat cheeses at real scale, a Bavarian rarity

Finding it in America

No US distribution could be verified; the company lists Europe as its sales territory, with no country-by-country list published. For the organic-alpine idea stateside, look to American organic alpine-style makers — or put Andechs on the itinerary: the monastery hill, the dairy country between the two lakes, and the beer garden are a single afternoon.

Visiting

No public visitor program could be confirmed.