The Auenhof near Telgte: All kinds of homemade products from milk to soap

"Always there", the Schulte Bisping family has been on the almost 800-year-old farm. About 30 years ago, they converted the farm to direct marketing - which means that the cheese and many other products go directly from the farm to the customers. "Our claim is to offer the highest quality. And this is the best way for us to do that," Sebastian Schulte Bisping explains the philosophy of the Auenhof. The 29-year-old is a trained banker and takes over the commercial part of the business. Then there are his siblings Florian, who devotes his heart and mind to cheese as a master dairyman, and master butcher Felix, who also looks after the cheese dairy. The two youngest, Christian and Maria, also provide active support. Mum Birgit, a passionate cheese maker and downright cow lover, looks after the farm and her "very special treasure": hand-strained soap.

In addition to cheese, many other dairy products, selected meat and sausage specialities and fresh eggs, it is available in the farm shop and in the vending machine, which is also located on the farm premises. "In addition, we run an online shop and also supply supra-regional customers," says Sebastian Schulte Bisping.

Besides the high quality of their products, it is just as important to the family to be honest and authentic. Thus, the cheese dairy is located in the same building as the farm shop. "Anyone who wants to can watch us at work through the window panes," says Sebastian Schulte Bisping. And if you are already on the farm, then it is also directly worthwhile to get to know the other "farm members": because the chickens and pigs, the goats and cats and the farm dogs are just as much a part of it as the dairy cows and their calves.

The cows are kept in a modern open stable at night and in winter, and in summer they are allowed to go out to the adjacent pasture every morning. All animals have fresh, farm-own fodder at all times, fresh clear water from the farm's own well, fresh air and as much grazing as the weather permits. "For us, natural husbandry of farm animals means that we take full responsibility from the first to the last day of the animal's life - morally and in an animal-friendly way," explains Sebastian Schulte Bisping and emphasises: "That is precisely our idea of holism in husbandry and production."