MAKING IT IN THE 802: Marisa R. Mauro ’03

Marisa R. Mauro ’03 Owner of Ploughgate Creamery at Bragg Farm, Fayston, VT

“I feel very attached to each piece of butter I make. A lot of time goes into it. It’s artistic, scientific – it means a lot to me.” Marisa Mauro ’03

Ploughgate Creamery pairs European tradition with fresh Vermont cream to make small‐batch, artisanal cultured butter. Owned and operated by butter maker and entrepreneur, Marisa Mauro, Ploughgate Creamery has been crafting butter of the finest quality in Vermont’s Mad River Valley since 2015. Marisa started working as a farmhand for Mark and Gari Fischer at Woodcock Farm in Weston, Vermont, when she was 15. She always loved animals and decided to try farming with an eye toward being a veterinarian. She fell in love with all aspects of farmstead life but could see the struggle of conventional farming. While at BBA, classroom environment was not working for Marisa and she discussed her interest in farming with Paul Kelly, who was a great sounding board. She approached Chuck Scranton to ask him if she could finish her senior year by making cheese for Shelburne Farms. In order to satisfy her graduation requirements, she wrote detailed reports documenting the process and produced a film about dairy producers and artisanal cheese. Using that final semester to make cheese was crucial and she is grateful that Burr and Burton gave her the freedom to follow her passion. During that spring at Shelburne Farms, Marisa was inspired and mentored by Andy and Mateo Kehler of Jasper Hill Farm, as well as Neil Urie at Bonnieview Farm, both located in the Northeast Kingdom. She spent the next few years out West working for a cattle rancher on the Crow Reservation in southeastern Montana, followed by attending school in California for herbal medicine, and then working with a Peruvian American goat farmer. This experience ultimately sent her back to Vermont where she enrolled at Sterling College in Craftsbury, Vermont. Typical college life was not the answer but working in the local artisanal cheese community proved to be the solution. She worked for Neil at Bonnieview and with his encouragement, at age 23, she founded Ploughgate Creamery down the road at an abandoned cheese house. Marisa became one of Jasper Hill's first producers and

shortly earned national awards and accolades for her Willoughby and Hartwell cheeses. The Kehler brothers’ business model makes it possible for small producers to make a value‐added product and leave the aging, marketing, and distribution of a small farm’s product to The Cellars at Jasper Hill Farm. When a fire destroyed her rented cheesemaking facility in 2011, she took a break from the dairy industry but soon heard about the Vermont Land Trust’s plans to sell the historic Bragg Farm in Fayston for its agricultural value. The property’s bank‐style barn was raised in 1909, and though it was an active dairy for most of the intervening years, it had ceased being a dairy enterprise in the 1970s. Marisa submitted a 30‐page business plan and was one of thirteen candidates who applied to own the iconic Vermont farm sitting high atop a hill in the scenic Mad River Valley. Marisa was awarded the farm in 2013 and started on the path to cultured butter. The happy coincidence is that century‐old preserved Bragg family correspondence describes the Bragg’s thriving butter business—and now Marisa has brought the craft back to the farm. Cultured butter is made in the European style by adding beneficial live active cultures to cream before churning, similar to cheese or yogurt. Local farms and co‐ops provide the pasteurized cream. Marisa has many distributors across the country and relationships with high‐end restaurants in New York and Boston. Ploughgate also raises pigs, boards heifers, and Marisa’s boyfriend raises pheasants on the property. Marisa said that it was important to leave home, so she could come back, a very classic tale. But ultimately she reports that “Vermont always had my heart and I wanted to get my hands back in this soil. I love the Vermont landscape and the Vermont community. Out of all the places I have travelled, there is nothing that compares to it.” As for the future, she feels grateful that she gets to live, work, and grow old in this state. Marisa’s brother, Charles Mauro ’96, is also a Burr and Burton alumnus. o