History
It is not easy to follow the trace of the ancestors of Aranburu’s family that along generations and generations have devoted itself to the shepherding in the Gipuzkoa’s small village of Idiazabal and its surroundings. The tradition had been done by the family until the begginings of the 20th century, when Prudencio Aranburu was seduced by the industrialization of the area, interrupting with it the milenary activity during a few decades.
But Jesús, Javier and Juanjo, the three sons of Prudencio, were feeling curiosity for its grandparents office and decided to recover, for pure pleasure, the shepherding and one step at a time, in a self-taught way, they began to recover the arts of the dairy.
Initially it was a game. Each of the brothers made cheese marking them with a different coin as if it was an stamp. The competition between them succeded in a way of improving their skills, acquiring habilities with the tools and learning how to find out the best raw materials.
In this way they began commercializing the scanty but excellent product of their youth game, turning the cheese making into its handcrafted part-time employ.
During the 90’s they were building up the foundations of what in 2005 would be set up as J. Aranburu Elkarte (the ‘J’ responds to the initial of the three brother’s name) together with 3 more shepherds that contribute with the milk.
