List of products by brand FROMAGE DE BELLELAY
Bellelay Abbey was founded in 1136 and confirmed six years later by Pope Innocent II. A document from 1192, that is to say a century before the beginnings of the Swiss Confederation, mentions the monks of Bellelay in connection with cheese: they paid the annual tax for certain landed property with cheese made in Abbey. Several documents from the following centuries attest to the use of this precious cheese as a means of payment.
The oldest description of Fromage de Bellelay dates from the year 1628. It is indicated there that one must use for this cheese “a very fatty milk of excellent quality resulting from the best herbs and plants of the country”.
Beuret and Chatelain report that already in 1192, the cheese produced at the Abbey served as annual rent for the fief of the Star. As time and centuries passed, cheese dairies outside the Abbey also began to produce this cheese, for example the Vacherie des Embreux (between Les Genevez and Lajoux), the Vacheries de Lajoux and those des Genevez, as well as others farms of monasteries at Les Joux and at Fornet-Dessous, Rebévelier, etc.
Manufacturing locations in 1950: Châtelat, Fornet-Dessous, Le Fuet, Lajoux, Moron, Reconvillier, Tavannes, Tramelan, Loveresse, La Chaux d'Abel, Le Noirmont, Villeret and the Courgenay cheese dairy.
