Want Some Donkey Cheese? You’ll Have to Ask Novak Djokovic

Attention dairy consumers: the tennis champ has bought up the world's supply of donkey cheese for 2013.

  • Share
  • Read Later
Rene Miko / isifa / Getty Images)

Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic smiles during a press conference prior to his exhibition Tennis Classic match on November 14, 2012 in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic holds a number of distinguished titles: he’s the ITF World Champion, the ATP World Tour’s No. 1 player, and the exclusive owner of the world’s supply of donkey cheese. Yes, you read that last one correctly. Djokovic has bought the entire 2013 output of the rather unique dairy product from the Serbian farm that produces it, the Daily Mail reported.

Tennis’ unstoppable power player is securing his cache of the cheese, called pule, in order to ensure that he has enough to serve in the restaurant chain he’s launching in his home country. Djokovic, 25, has reportedly spent millions on the year’s supply of pule, which sometimes sells for over $500 per pound, according to ABC News, and has been deemed the world’s most expensive cheese. Its creation is certainly intensive: it takes 25 liters of donkey milk to produce one kilogram of pule.

Cheesemaker Slobodan Simic told the Telegraph that he’s more than happy to do business with Djokovic.

(MORE: Person of the Year 2011: Novak Djokovic)

“It will save a lot of effort having to deal with various restaurants, with only one customer buying the lot we don’t have to worry too much about salesmen,” Simic, whose farm is based in Zasavica, Serbia, said. “It is a great vote of confidence as well in what we do here.”

The Zasavica company is reportedly the only farm in the world to milk donkeys for cheese—which must be done by hand three times a day, Reuters noted. The final product is white, crumbly and rich, and boasts 60 times more vitamin C than cow’s milk, according to the Telegraph. 

Of course, Djokovic can afford to indulge in whatever luxury cheese he likes—the Grand Slam champ earned a cool $19.8 million in the last year, Forbes calculated.

It’s not known how much Djokivic’s restaurants will charge for the cheese, but at least he won’t have to worry about any competitors.

MORE: Gastrocrats Beware: Luxury Foods Aren’t Worth It