Our story

Agricultural and forestry cooperative Gozd Bled

Farmers in the Bled area have been organising into co-operatives since 1898, when the first predecessors of the existing agricultural and forestry co-operative Gozd Bled were established in Bled and Gorje. Before the end of the Second World War, co-operatives supplied local inhabitants and hotel guests. During that time cheese-making was kept alive by the co-operatives of the villages Podhom, Bodešče and Selo. After the war, there were several attempts at reviving the cheese-making tradition on mountain pastures (e.g. Kranjska dolina, Belska planina and Selška planina), which, unfortunately, did not last long.

Farms

The beautiful cultural landscape surrounding Lake Bled has been shaped through the millennia by local farmers who take their herds to graze for part of the year on the meadows in the valley and on the nearby plateaus of the Julian Alps to which they are bound by ties of pride and affection.

High-quality cow's milk from family farms organised in to an agricultural and forestry co-operative is used to make a delicious culinary delight - Bled Cheese. Each farm carries a unique story.

Get to know them.

Cows

Many of these farms still do things the traditional way. Twice a day, in the morning and in the evening, farmers still come to their sheds to milk the cows that can be seen grazing the pastures near Bled from early spring to late autumn. Some farms have modernised the sheds and their herds have grown. What all these farmers still have in common, though, is that they have preserved the tradition of grazing cattle on the slopes of the Mežakla, Jelovica and Pokljuka plateaus. Local working farms also cultivate the agricultural land of several farm owners who have abandoned farming.