The company started just over a year ago and is currently producing six-and-a-half tonnes of cheese a year.
Ms McNamara said they had the capacity to boost production to 24 tonnes, but were looking to establish a base market first.
The limit is 25 tonnes a year to still classify as a small cheesemaker in the NZ Champions of Cheese Awards.
After winning a silver earlier this year for their camembert, Grinning Gecko was approached by a Japanese company.
"They like cheese with a story," she said. "They liked Northland's story and they liked our story."
She said if they expanded too much they would lose the specialty distinction.
Grinning Gecko won its first award just weeks after opening, with a silver for its ricotta.
Ms McNamara said they opened too late to enter their hard cheese, so sent a ricotta sample.
"It was the second commercial batch we had ever made," she said.
The company uses certified organic milk, which is picked up from two farms in Tangiteroria and Mangapai.
October is New Zealand Cheese Month, which is organised by the New Zealand Specialist Cheese Association, of which Grinning Gecko and Kerikeri's Mahoe Farmhouse Cheese are both members.
Ms McNamara said the specialist cheese industry was on the rise in New Zealand, as people looked to buy hand-made products and food from the source.
"Food as a whole is going back to the source. It's an old industry coming full circle."
She said customers were also looking to buy product locally, while putting money back into the local economy.
The company regularly sells cheese at the local growers markets in Kerikeri, Paihia and Whangarei.
The large number of food tourists is also a market they were looking to grow in.
"Most tourists, they want to to experience the culture, they want to see the sights and they want to taste the foods," she said.
Ms McNamara said they were also members of the newly formed Northland Food Producers, a group supported by Northland Inc, Northland's economic development agency, and NorthTec.
"It's hoped that by banding together we can promote Northland as a food destination," she said, a point Northland Inc supports and expects to feature in the Northland Regional Growth Report later this year.
Bob Rosevear, the owner of Northland's biggest cheese producers, Kerikeri's Mahoe Farmhouse Cheese, said he was not looking to expand further than the 25 tonnes they currently produce. He said when Mahoe was first started, they were producing up to 45 tonnes of cheese, but had now scaled it back.
"We found it too hard," he said. "We were working seven days a week. Now we're only working six days a week."
He said there was a lot more competition these days, but also a bigger market.
Mahoe scooped the country's top artisan cheese award for the third year running in March when they won the Cuisine Champion Artisan Cheese Award for its Very Old Edam at the New Zealand cheese awards.
In 2013, Mahoe's Jake Rosevear won the champion cheesemaker award, while their Very Old Edam was champion artisan cheese and their Mature Gouda the champion Dutch-style cheese. In 2012 Jake won the top cheesemaker title for the first time, and Very Old Edam began its reign as the nation's supreme artisan cheese.
• For Northland Cheese Month events, check out New Zealand Specialist Cheese Association's website www.nzsca.org.nz.
