How did an American end up running a legendary British cheese retailer and exporter? Neal’s Yard Dairy selects, matures and sells some of the finest British and Irish cheeses, both internationally and in its own four London shops. Over four decades, founder Randolph Hodgson elevated the profile of these distinctive cheeses and helped many traditional cheesemakers survive. With Hodgson’s retirement, this esteemed British firm is now under the direction of David Lockwood (above), an American.

I spoke to David recently by phone about his career and why we don’t see more British cheese in the U.S. I’ve condensed our conversation here.

So what’s your back story? Did a love of cheese take you to London? Or did you go to London and fall in love with cheese?

I went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and in 1985 I went to work at Zingerman’s as a dishwasher. At the time I didn’t understand how good a shop it was, but I liked cheese and pretty soon ended up on the retail side. I ended up co-managing it with Debra Dickerson, and in the early 1990s, we brought the first Neal’s Yard Dairy cheeses into the U.S. Then I met Randolph and asked if I could come over and learn more about maturing cheese.

(I’ll summarize the next few chapters: Lockwood goes to London and works for Neal’s Yard Dairy for two years, until his visa runs out. He returns to the U.S. and gets an MBA from Georgetown. In 1998, he turns down a Wall Street job offer—who does that?—in favor of returning to the UK to become a partner in Neal’s Yard Dairy. Today Hodgson is retired and Lockwood, the former Zingerman’s dishwasher, is an owner and the director of Neal’s Yard Dairy.)

It seems like we used to see more Neal’s Yard Dairy cheeses in the U.S. I’m thinking of Hafod, Lincolnshire Poacher, Gubbeen, Durrus, Coolea, Ticklemore, Harbourne Blue, Beenleigh Blue. Why do we rarely see these wonderful cheeses in U.S. shops anymore?

Hafod is amazing cheese but it’s expensive and people aren’t ordering it. (A surprise to me: Lockwood’s American wife, Jennifer Kast, is Hafod’s cheesemaker.) Is it a price thing? Maybe. But how much of that price thing is shops being afraid to sell it versus allowing customers to spend money on a cheese they think is really good? Hafod is the oldest organic dairy farm in Wales. It’s made totally by hand. The only mechanical work is milling the curd. I think it’s more a reluctance by shop owners to take a risk.

British cheeses are far more expensive now because of Brexit. And Brexit has tacked weeks onto the lead time for sales. We used to have an efficient method for getting cheese from London to the U.S. We would send all our cheeses for Europe and the U.S. to Rungis (the wholesale market near Paris). The cheese for America would be consolidated, and the boat would get to New Jersey or Long Island City quickly. Now we can’t use that path anymore. Shipping from the U.K. is more expensive, slower and less dependable. But we voted for it! It might seem like shipping from the U.K. would be a better way to do it but it’s not.

Also, we’ve taken a currency hit. Neal’s Yard buys Irish cheeses like Gubbeen, Durrus and Coolea in euros and sells them in dollars.

So, the short answer is cost. In terms of Cheddar, a lot of retailers have moved to Westcombe Cheddar and away from Montgomery’s, Lincolnshire Poacher or Hafod because Westcombe is less expensive. And with the disruption to transportation—some of it government-created—boats aren’t arriving at the predicted time. Sometimes U.S. retailers are getting multiple loads of pre-ordered cheese dumped on them at the same time. It’s hard for a shop owner; it puts them at risk to have all this cheese descend on them. If that happens two or three times, you adopt more conservative ordering.

I see the term “British Territorial” on your website. What’s a British Territorial cheese?

The British climate is a mild maritime climate, which historically meant that you could make a different style of cheese here than in other places. You didn’t have to rush. It’s like sourdough bread. By not rushing the process, you end up with a more acid, crumblier cheese. If you give Cheshire or Lancashire to a French or Italian person, they just don’t know what to make of it. “This is sour! This is wrong!” But given the opportunity to eat it a few times, with beer or cider, they see the way it works. If you look at the real old-school cheeses, like Lancashire, they are two- to three-day makes. Over time Cheddar has gone to a faster make, and it can be very fast in factories, but it takes the heart out of the cheese. The ones we work with are slowing it down.

I have no science to back this up, but to my mind it’s that much more important to eat these cheeses at room temperature and chew them to release the flavor. With a piece of Comté you get the flavor quickly. It’s very upfront. With a Territorial it’s much slower.

What are the hallmarks of great Cheddar for you? What are you looking for?

If you had asked me 20 years ago, I would have described Montgomery’s: brothy, meaty, with a big and forward flavor. I still like Montgomery’s but I’ve come to expect different things from different Cheddars. For all my Cheddars I want the texture to be toothsome—to bite into it and chew it and not have it go to nothing right away. Whether the flavor is sweet or savory—and I’m not crazy about too sweet—I want the flavor to build and change as I chew it. And I want a long aftertaste.

Any American Cheddars you admire?

The one that always comes to mind is Willy Lehner’s Bleu Mont. What I like about it is, it’s not too sweet. It’s understated in the loveliest way. I’ve had some really nice Cabot Clothbound, but I don’t get a lot of American cheeses because they’re horrifically expensive when they get here. We used to sell Rogue River Blue and Pleasant Ridge Reserve between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but in the last few years they would have been 150 to 160 (British) pounds a kilo (roughly $85-90 a pound). That just didn’t feel good. When they were 100 pounds a kilo (roughly $57 a pound), we could sell them.