Gourmet News November 2015 Cheese Guide by Yasmine Brown

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Eating Cheese is an Agricultural Act

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Finds Raw 18 FDA Milk Cheeses Riskier Than Pasteurized Milk Cheeses

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Cheese 22 Specialty with a Little

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Marin French Cheese: Grounded in Tradition and Moving Forward

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Cheese

eating

is an agricultural act By Lorrie Baumann

Catalina bleats insistently from her pen in the Toluma Farms nursery barn as farmer Tamara Hicks approaches. Slender and long-haired, Hicks has the sun-kissed complexion of a woman who spends much of her time outdoors, and she doesn’t have the bottle that Catalina, a pure white Saanen kid born several weeks ago, is hoping for. Like the other lambs and kids born this year at Toluma Farms, a 160-acre farm in west Marin County, California, Catalina is named after an island. There are also Kokomo, the island of the Beach Boys song; Floriana; and Manhattan – all bodies of land surrounded by water, a topic that’s very much on Californians’ minds. “We have often discussed the irony of being surrounded by water, being a coastal farm and dairy and worrying constantly about water,” Hicks says. “Hence, the islands seemed comical in a depressing sort of way.” She and her husband, David Jablons, bought this farm in the rolling hills near Point Reyes in 2003 with the idea that they could become agents of change in the local food production system and in the debate about climate change. “We made a conscious decision that we could be part of the conversation about restoring the land,” Hicks says. They’ve sunk most of their children’s potential inheritance into this property, and now California is giving them a practical lesson in what the state’s climate means to the future of local food. California is in its fourth year of a drought that’s setting records even for a state with a long history of concern for whether it has enough water to supply a burgeoning population and an agriculture industry that supplies most of the country’s fruits and vegetables. The period from 2012 through 2014 was the driest three-year period ever in terms of statewide precipitation; exacerbated by record warmth, with the highest statewide average temperatures ever recorded in 2014. Every California county has been included in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s drought

designations at various times between the beginning of 2012 and the end of 2014. Unlike most other natural disasters, drought is a gradual crisis, occurring slowly over a period of time. There’s no sudden event that announces it, and it’s not usually ended by any one rain storm. The impacts of drought get worse the longer the drought continues, as reservoirs are depleted and water levels decline in groundwater basins. Even though some parts of northern California did get a little rain last December and again in February of this year, the cumulative effect of four critically dry years has created a crisis that is expected to cost California’s agriculture industry $1.8 billion this year, with a total statewide economic cost of $2.7 billion. More than 18,000 jobs in the state’s agriculture industry are likely to be lost to the drought this year, according to agricultural economists studying the effects of the drought for the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Marin and Sonoma Counties have been the heart of northern California’s dairy industry since 1856, when Clara Steele made the first known batch of cheese in this part of the country from a recipe she found in a book. These are not the state’s most droughtstricken counties, but even here there’s a pervasive air of crisis. Marin County has declared a state of emergency so that farmers can qualify for any aid that becomes available. Local radio stations advertise water conservation tips and the availability of financial aid for water-saving devices. Farmers and gardeners hold evening meetings to share advice, offer each other fellowship and discuss the chances that this year’s drought might be California’s new normal, as Governor Jerry Brown said it is in April, as he imposed mandatory water use restrictions. Across California, the message is being passed that, “Brown is the new green,” as the state’s residents are urged to save water, save water, save water. The Cheese Guide

Hicks and Jablons take some solace in the knowledge that this property has a long history of having sufficient water. California’s most significant historical droughts have been a six-year drought in 1929-1934 – the Dust Bowl years, the two year-drought of 197677 – a comparatively short drought that nevertheless had very serious effects on the state’s groundwater, and another six-year drought in 1987-1992. The 1929-1934 drought was comparable to the most severe dry periods in more than a millennium of reconstructed climate data, but its effects were small by presentday standards because the state’s urban population and agricultural development are much greater now. In the 1970s drought, the family that owned Toluma Farms then had enough water to allow friends and neighbors to come and fill up tanks to truck back to their own farms. This time around, Hicks doesn’t feel secure enough to make that offer. When they found this property, 18 miles west of Petaluma, in an area where they’d been coming for weekend camping excursions for years, it was a dilapidated farm with a history of dairy production that had been abandoned and the pastures neglected. Ten thousand old tires had been piled on a hillside in an ill-advised attempt to prevent the slope from eroding and were spilling down into the road. Other discarded junk had been dumped around the house or buried in backhoed pits. Neither Hicks nor Jablons had any experience in farming – Hicks is a clinical psychologist and Jablons is a surgeon, both with busy practices in San Francisco – but they felt that their financial resources, their skills in forming and maintaining helpful relationships with other people and their commitment to their values could see them through the challenges of returning the farm to its historic use as a productive dairy farm. “It’s a good thing that we are both equally committed to the idea of restoring the farm to health and making a statement about the value of sustainable agriculture and a healthy food system,” Hicks says. Otherwise, she adds, their marriage might not have survived the challenges of figuring out how to turn derelict pastures and an ad hoc landfill into a financially and ecologically sustainable family farm. After more than a decade of work with the Natural Resources Conservation Service to rehabilitate the pastures, hauling away the tires and other garbage, building a guesthouse that’s rented out for in-depth educational farm stays

and meeting space, and opening a creamery for making cheese, the farm hasn’t yet fulfilled that dream of sustainability. Hicks is hopeful that the artisan cheeses from the Tomales Farmstead Creamery she opened on the property in 2013 will be the final piece in a patchwork of enterprises the couple operates to support the farm, but returning the land to health will probably take a few more decades, she estimates. “We’re not profitable yet,” she says. “I’m not sure if it’s possible to make a living as farmstead cheese producers.” Toluma Farms gets its water from sidehill wells that just have to last until the drought ends because the farm can’t support the costs of trucking in water, even if the water was available at all, which it probably wouldn’t be. “We kind of hope and pray,” Hicks says. “The city [of Petaluma, the nearest municipal water system] has pulled way back in prioritizing water for agriculture. Houses out here can’t even get water.” Coming to terms with the drought has meant cutting back the milking schedule to once per day instead of the usual twice-daily milkings at 12-hour intervals, which saves half the water normally used to clean the milking parlor but reduces milk production by 25 percent. State and federal regulations require that the equipment used in milking must be sanitized before every milking and then washed immediately after use, both to protect the milk from contamination and to protect the health of the animals, and all of this cleaning is a major use of water on dairy farms. Tomales Farmstead Creamery makes and sells five cheeses made from the milk of its herd of 200 goats and more than 100 East Friesian sheep. The cheeses all have names that reflect the heritage of the coastal Miwok Indians who lived here before the Europeans arrived. Kenne is a soft-ripened goat cheese with a wrinkly Geotrichum rind that’s aged for three weeks. Teleeka is a soft-ripened cheese made with goat, sheep and Jersey cow milk – the only one in the collection that’s not a farmstead cheese, since the Jersey milk comes from Marissa Thornton’s dairy farm just down the road. Assa, a word that means “female” is an aged goat cheese with a chardonnay-washed rind. The name is a tribute to the many women who work on the farm as well as the female animals that produce the milk. Liwa is a fresh goat cheese aged just three days – the name means “water.” “We pray for water,” Hicks says. Atika is an aged sheep and goat cheese with a McEvoy

Olive Oil rind. Atika won a second-place award from the American Cheese Society in 2014, in the creamery’s first time to enter the awards contest. All five cheeses are made with pasteurized milk, since the creamery doesn’t have the space to isolate pasteurized milk cheeses from raw milk varieties. Hicks is glad now that the couple made an early decision not to make raw milk cheeses because she’s noticed that the makers of raw milk cheeses are getting extra scrutiny this year from food safety inspectors. While there are raw milk cheesemakers who believe that pasteurization could compromise the complexity of the flavors in their cheeses, Hicks is satisfied that the production method she has chosen produces an excellent product. “We think it’s delicious cheese, or we wouldn’t do what we do,” she says. Two years ago, Jablons and Hicks started growing their own hay using dry-land farming techniques, by planting 40 acres with a mixture of oats, rye and barley that yielded one cutting last year and a second cutting this year. That’s easing some of the effects of the drought on the farm, since it insulates the couple from the extra costs of buying hay in a market in which the supply/demand ratio has been affected by decreased production from farmers who haven’t had enough water to irrigate their hay fields. “We still have to supplement some, but not nearly what we had had to do,” Hicks says. “With the drought, we’re paying twice as much now as we did 10 years ago. It’s now $300 a ton, and the quality is not as good.... We know people who’ve had to get rid of their cattle. Fortunately, sheep and goats don’t drink as much water.” She’s grateful for the coastal fog that blankets the hillsides of her farm in the mornings and shelters the fields from the evaporative power of the sun’s heat. “I don’t know how the farmers around Modesto are doing it,” she says. “The weather is so much hotter there.” Drought Adds to the Pain of a Bleating Heart Down the road a few miles, at Bleating Heart Cheese, Hicks’ friend and fellow cheese maker Seana Doughty is also feeling the effects of the drought, even though she owns no dairy animals. She buys all the milk she uses to make her American Originals cheeses from local farmers, and the farmer who usually supplies her with most of her sheep milk won’t be able the supply the same quantity she has in the past. This year, almost half of her ewes didn’t get pregnant. Since they didn’t get pregnant, they won’t be producing milk this year. It’ll be another year before they’re in season to breed again, so this year’s failure means the loss of a year’s milk production from those sheep – and a sizable hole in the farmer’s bank account. The dairy farmer blames her mature dairy ewes’ failure to become pregnant on the drought, which seems to have changed the normal proportions of the plant species in the sheep’s pastures, Doughty says. “The dairy operator, on further research, found that when you have an overabundance of clover in the pasture, it can disrupt the ewes’ breeding cycle. What happened in the pasture that they had their ewes on during their ‘maternity leave’ was that they had much more clover than usual. This wasn’t obvious at the time – it was only when the ewes didn’t get pregnant that the situation became clear. We have no proof, but the evidence is there,” she explains.

For Doughty, it means that the milk that would have been produced by the ewes that failed to breed won’t be coming into her creamery. “That equates to a little over $50,000 of unrealized revenue to us,” she says. For the past two years, she has been making award-winning cheeses in the creamery she and her husband built in the former milk room of the Thornton Ranch with some financial help from a loan from Whole Foods Market. “Our bank turned us down twice, but Whole Foods came through,” she says. For the four years prior to that, she and her husband had been roving cheese makers, making their cheeses in rented facilities. “Cheese making is one of the most capital-intensive businesses you can get into because of the expense of the equipment, the investment in milk. Year two, all of a sudden we’re down 40 percent. Not having that revenue is an issue,” she says. “What we’re having to do now is rethink our production schedule for the rest of the year because we don’t have as much sheep milk as we had expected. We’re looking to source other milk. Sheep milk is almost impossible to get if you don’t have a contract. We’re probably going to process more cow milk, and we’re also thinking about talking to our friend [Andrew Zlot] who has water buffalo [at the Double 8 Dairy, one of only a few water buffalo dairies in North America]. He makes gelato in the summer, but in the winter, he may have surplus.” Finding other milk so she can continue to fill her aging rooms is a financial necessity for Doughty, who’s in a hole because she and her husband recalled all of their 2014 production from the market last December after the federal Food and Drug Administration found Listeria monocytogenes in samples of the creamery’s cheeses. Listeria is a virulent foodborne pathogen that causes about 1,600 illnesses and 260 deaths a year in the United States, including one person killed and several hospitalized across five states during a 2013 outbreak linked to farmstead cheese. The microbe is widespread in the environment, and is commonly found around humans, domestic animals, raw agricultural commodities and in food processing environments, especially cool, damp areas, according to the FDA. While common elsewhere, the microbe is not welcome either in processed food that’s intended to be eaten without further cooking once it’s sold or on any surface that comes into contact with the food before it’s sold. Detection of Listeria in lab testing is sufficient to cause the FDA to declare the entire batch of food from which the sample was taken to be adulterated and therefore unfit for sale, whether anyone gets sick from eating it or not. “We had been testing. Our lab reports said everything was fine,” Doughty says. “Then the FDA collected samples and didn’t report the information to us for nearly three months. The consequence of that was that we had to recall our entire 2014 cheese production, which ended up costing us about $200,000.” The Cheese Guide

The contaminated cheeses found at Bleating Heart resulted in no reported illnesses but dealt a nearly fatal blow to the creamery’s business. “A lot of people expected the business to shut down,” Doughty says. “For a company of our size, it was truly devastating. It was emotionally devastating because we try so hard to be conscientious. We take food safety very seriously. It was almost unfathomable. I was having panic attacks every day. I couldn’t believe this was happening to us. And then the money part. In the beginning, it was disbelief, and then the financial reality started to set in. It was like looking over the edge of a cliff. It was like the Grim Reaper had come. It was literally a life and death situation for our company.” After extensive testing and a thorough cleaning, as well as a complete reevaluation of their production process, Doughty and her husband cashed in their retirement funds and sank the money into a new oven in which their aging boards are now heat-treated between each batch of cheese, new laundry facilities to clean the new color-coded uniforms that the staff changes into and out of each time they enter the production room and the aging rooms, wages for the small staff and a new supply of milk to restart operations. “We truly believe in the future of the company, and we truly believe in the cheeses we’re making. Quitting just wasn’t an option. There’s no way I’m going to be defeated by the L-word, Listeria,” Doughty says. “We can’t afford any more setbacks, period, small or large, but we truly are committed to making a great product and a safe product, and if we didn’t think we could, we wouldn’t have made such an investment.” Bleating Heart Cheese was allowed to go back into production in January of this year after the FDA wrapped up its investigation. The source of the contamination was never pinpointed, but Doughty believes that it came from the brushes that she and her staff use to wash the rinds of their cheeses. “How the listeria got into the brushes we never found out,” she says. Today, those brushes are sanitized and heat-treated after every use. Despite her respect for the courteous and professional treatment she received from the FDA inspectors who spent days swabbing down her creamery during their investigation, the three-month delay between the time the FDA showed up to take the first samples and when the lab results were reported back to Doughty has left a bad taste in her mouth. “We never got any explanation about why there was such a delay between the time they detected the Listeria and when they called us. We emailed them repeatedly asking for a copy of the lab report. They kept telling us they didn’t have it,” she says. “If they had told us in a timely manner, we would have immediately suspended cheese production until finding out what happened. It would have saved us a lot of grief and a lot of money. And what would have happened if someone got sick in the interim? Fortunately, no one got sick, and that’s the important thing. Thank goodness. But what if someone had?” Bleating Heart is best known for its first cheese, Fat Bottom Girl, named for a Queen song in which it’s claimed that, “Fat bottomed girls, you make the rockin’ world go round.” Fat Bottom Girl won a first-place award in the American Originals category at this year’s American Cheese Society awards. “While the recipe was no accident, the shape [of the first batch of Fat Bottom Girl] was, because I was a newbie and took the 10

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cheeses out of the form too early,” Doughty says. Fat Bottom Girl is a raw sheep milk cheese with a lightly washed rind that’s aged for three to four months. Bleating Heart’s other cheeses include Ewelicious Blue, a raw sheep milk blue cheese with a natural rind that’s aged three to four months and its sister, Moolicious Blue, a similar cheese made with raw Jersey cow milk. Buff Blue is a blue cheese made from raw water buffalo milk with a natural rind that’s aged for three to four months. There’s a mixed milk cheese called Foursquare, which is made with cow, sheep, buffalo and goat milk; Shepherdista, a sheep milk cheese with a rustic natural rind, and Funky Bleats, which is a washed rind cheese made from a blend of sheep and goat milk. A few other cheeses are made intermittently, depending on the supply of available milk. The cheese is sold primarily in specialty retailers in California, but occasionally, it makes it out of the state as people call and order it from the creamery’s distributors, and Bleating Heart’s online store will be open before the end of this year. Making Cheese to Carry on a Family Tradition “Of all the people here when we started out, the Lafranchi family was the most gracious about offering help,” Tamara Hicks said as she thought back over her years at Toluma Farms. “They just said, ‘Anything at all that you need.’ They’re just the most wonderful people.” The Lafranchi family runs the Lafranchi Ranch and Nicasio Valley Cheese about 28 miles from both Bleating Heart Cheese and Toluma Farms as the road runs, and standing in the small shop that the creamery operates on the property, Rick Lafranchi has nothing but respect for Seana Doughty. “She was going gangbusters. She won a double Best of Show at the California State Fair,” he says. “She was killing it.” Lafranchi is tall and muscular, a third-generation dairy farmer with a mop of sandy hair going gray and the clear-eyed, steady gaze of a survivor. He looks like a man who doesn’t suffer fools gladly. He points out that Doughty is part of the dairy tradition that began in the Point Reyes area in the mid-1850s. Those dairy pioneers included three Steele brothers George, Isaac and Edgar Steele and their cousin Rensselaer Steele who came to Sonoma County separately from their home state of Ohio. George and Rensselaer arrived in 1855. Within a year, they had found a farm to rent at Two Rock near Petaluma and were joined in June of 1856 by George’s parents, brother Edgar and Rensselaer’s family. Edgar found work harvesting oats and used his wages to buy his first five cows. It was Rensselaer’s wife Clara who made that first cheese. Inspired by the successful experimentation with cheesemaking, the Steeles expanded their small dairy business with another 25 dairy cows. In 1863, one of Edgar Steele’s dairy manager told him that he was milking about 55 cows and making 180 pounds of cheese per day, and while he wasn’t sure that Steele would approve of the wages he was paying to his workers, he thought that a good milker was worth the $30 a month he was paying for an experienced hand was cheaper than the $25 he’d pay a green hand for less skilled work. The Steeles gained national fame in 1864 when they produced a “monstrous” cheese at their southern dairies measuring 20 feet around and weighing 33,850 pounds, to benefit the Sanitary Commission, a forerunner of the American Red Cross, according

to D.S. Livingston, the historian of the Point Reyes National Seashore in 1993, when he compiled a history of “Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula” for the National Park Service. The Steele brothers, Carlisle S. Abbott, Rufus T. Buell, Charles Laird and others went from their operations in Marin County, which had become known as San Francisco’s milk pail, to other areas of the state, where they became some of the leading dairy producers in the state that now tops all others in dairy production. Lafranchi’s family arrived in Nicasio Valley, about nine miles east of Point Reyes Station, after his grandfather Fredolino immigrated from Maggia, a tiny farming village in Switzerland that’s about 81 miles north-northwest of Milan, Italy. He made his way to Nicasio Valley, married Zelma Dolcini, and started the Lafranchi Dairy in 1919. Fred and Zelma raised their children on the ranch, and eventually their son Will, Rick’s father, took over the operation. It was Will who first thought about making cheeses after meeting a cheese maker from the same Swiss village his father had left, but the family was busy at the time, just trying to make a living in the face of boom and bust prices for fluid milk, and nothing came of the idea at the time. Then Will passed away in 2002, and the family began taking another look at the idea. “We knew we wanted to position the ranch to be sustainable in the long term,” Lafranchi says. “We started pursuing the idea of a valueadded product.” The dairy industry has been successful in this area because it has a longer-thanaverage growing season for the pastures that feed the cows, and that was critical to early production. Over the past 30 years, it’s gotten more challenging as milk prices have careened wildly up and down in response to supply and demand pressures. Dairy farmers like Lafranchi began to look for a way to survive boom and bust milk prices and found two: the market for organic milk, for which dairy farmers are paid a premium price, and making artisanal cheese, which is sold at prices that reflect its value to consumers. In 1996, there were three cheese makers in the north Bay Area, and new creameries began popping up around that time. “What they were drawing on was the strength of the region to produce high-quality milk, and we thought we could do that,” Lafranchi says. By 2006, the Lafranchi Dairy had already started transitioning to organic milk production, which got the dairy off the milk price roller coaster but still didn’t produce enough revenue to give the family confidence that the farm was sustainable enough to support another generation of the family. “If there is a positive in organic milk production, it’s that the price you get for your milk reflects, so far, more accurately the price of producing that milk, whereas with conventional milk, it’s often a case of supply and demand,”

Lafranchi says. Cheese offered a window of hope, and the Lafranchi family gave the California Department of Agriculture a call to ask for help designing a cheese plant that would pass inspection. That close cooperation resulted in a facility designed to the latest safety standards that could be built for a lower cost than the family’s original design ideas, Lafranchi says. “He actually helped us save money.... What we found was that by working as closely as possible with government agencies, we were saved a lot of headaches,” he says. “You have to be more careful than you think careful is.” With the creamery built, Lafranchi began diverting a percentage of the milk from the farm’s 450 cows to making cheese in 2010. Today, Nicasio Valley Cheese is California’s only farmstead producer of organic cow milk cheeses, with eight cheeses ranging from fresh to bloomy rinds to washed rinds to cheeses in Alpine and Taleggio style that all reflect the family heritage from Maggia. Foggy Morning is an American Cheese Society award-winning fresh cheese that’s soft with a tang that gives it a long finish on the palate. Foggy Morning with Basil & Garlic has a pop of organic basil and a subtle garlic note infused into Foggy Morning for a cheese that appeals even to those who don’t normally favor flavored cheeses. Formagella, made in 3inch rounds with a velvety white exterior, is a mild aged cheese similar to a Brie, while Halleck Creek is a very similar cheese made in 8-inch wheels. Loma Alta is another softripened cheese that’s very similar to Formagella but has a more defined rind. It’s a two-time award winner at the American Cheese Society’s annual competition. Nicasio Reserve is a classic Swiss-Italian Alpine-style cheese aged at least three months. It’s a three-time gold medal winner at the California State Fair. Nicasio Square is a washed-rind cheese with a golden rind and a flavor reminiscent of a Taleggio cheese. It’s won awards at state, national and Good Food Award competitions. San Geronimo, also a washed-rind cheese, is the creamery’s newest product. Recently San Geronimo was awarded second place at the American Cheese Society’s annual competition in the raclette category. In the five years since the creamery started making cheese, Nicasio Valley’s sales have increased year over year every year, in spite of a dramatic increase in the number of specialty cheesemakers in northern California, all depending on the strength of the San Francisco market for high-quality food. “The number of labels has grown rapidly, and it’s really challenged the American public to experience all these cheeses,” Lafranchi says. “Since we started, the number of cheesemakers has doubled.” The Cheese Guide

Despite the competition, Lafranchi is optimistic about the future of his company and his cheeses. “Little kids absolutely love artisan cheese – and it doesn’t have to be the mild ones. They like the strong ones too. I think the future’s really bright for artisan cheeses in the U.S.” Assuming that Lafranchi’s optimism is justified by the market and the farm can stand the extra cost of buying feed in a market dramatically affected by this year’s drought, there’s a fourth generation of the Lafranchi family that would like to come back to the farm, and Lafranchi is hoping that he’ll be able to offer them the chance to do that. “If the opportunity was afforded to them, they could very well act,” he says. “Hopefully, the model will be valuable enough that it will be as attractive as many other careers could be.” In Pursuit of Sustainability at Redwood Hill Farm Jennifer Bice is the kind of grandmother who would sneak you a cookie if you asked, but it would probably be an oatmeal cookie, and she’d make you sit down at the table to eat it with a big glass of milk. In her case, that would be a big glass of goat milk from the herd of Nubian, Saanen, Alpine and La Mancha dairy goats that live on the farm right outside the doors of her home, which was once the farm’s cheese room. She’s the owner and cheesemaker at Redwood Hill Farm & Creamery, which makes Redwood Hill artisan cheeses, yogurt and kefir and Green Valley Organics lactose-free cow milk products. The oldest of a family of 10 children, she was born in Los Angeles and moved to Sebastopol with her parents when she was 10 years old. “Because we were now in the country and had no kids to play with, they got us animals,” she says. Of all the barnyard pets who came to live with the family, goats quickly became favorites because they were so smart. “Each of us had five or six or eight goats,” she says. “That added up to a herd very quickly.” This was in the late 1960s, a time when young people were coming back to the land and “health food stores” were opening across the country. The health food stores offered a ready market for goat milk, and Bice’s parents seized the opportunity to develop a Grade A goat dairy to supply them. In those days, health food stores were the only ones interested in goat milk, but in the time since then, health food stores have become natural food stores and goat milk products are in sufficient demand to give them a place in the dairy cases of conventional groceries. “It’s gratifying to see that changed in my lifetime,” Bice says. 12

The Cheese Guide

She and her late husband took the farm and Grade A dairy operation over from her parents in 1978, just as goat cheeses were starting to get popular, and they started making cheeses as a way to even out the creamery’s income over the year. Goat milk is a seasonal product – the Redwood Hill Farm goats kid at the beginning of the year, make milk through the spring and summer, tapering off in the fall, and then rest for two months before they kid again. The creamery’s milk supply naturally dried up when the goats did, and the Bices decided to make cheeses that they could sell for an income even when the goats weren’t producing. “Milk lasts for seven days, whereas cheese you can age for years,” Jennifer says. “We weren’t thinking too clearly, because my favorite cheeses are the chèvre and the rindripened ones, and they tend not to have the longest shelf life.... I tend to make what I like to eat.” If the milk has been produced in a sanitary way, the consumer can’t necessarily tell the difference between a cow milk cheese and a goat milk cheese. Goat milk has short-chain fatty acids that make it a more delicate milk, and if it’s abused – even agitated too much – it’s those short-chain fatty acids that break down and make for barny flavors. The small fat globules in the milk account for the natural homogenization of goat milk – its fat doesn’t rise to the top of the milk the way that cream naturally separates from cow milk – and also make the milk easier for humans to digest. In Europe, most of the farms that produce goat milk cheeses belong to distinct traditions, in which a given farm will make one, and only one, kind of cheese from a traditional recipe. Most of those goat cheeses are small format cheeses made with a lactic fermentation that really shows off the milk. Instead of offering different varieties of cheese for sale, the farmers often sell their single variety at different ages, with cheeses like a crottin, for instance, going to market when it’s fresh to a year old. Most Americans prefer softer and fresher cheeses like the Bucheret. “I like it in between, where when you cut it, it kind of cracks and then you can melt it on your tongue,” Bice says. Chèvre was the first goat cheese to achieve popularity in the U.S. “The chefs are to be thanked for promoting goat cheese,” says Bice. Once people started tasting goat cheese in expensive restaurants, the glamour associated with those fabled eateries rubbed off, and consumers began looking for it in their grocery stores. Today, chèvre is a staple of American cuisine and is widely used as a pizza topping, as an ingredient in cheesecakes and for stuffing chicken breasts. “Even today, that’s our biggest poundage sold because it is so versatile,” she says. Redwood Hill Farm makes chèvre the traditional way, with a long 18-hour lactic culture and then draining in cheesecloth bags for 48 hours with no pressure, which makes a cheese with a light,

fluffy texture. It’s packaged for sale in plastic tubs that preserve the texture rather than the Cryovac plastic in which commercial chèvre is packaged for a longer shelf life. “It’s easier to take on a picnic [in the tubs],” Bice says. Redwood Hill Farm’s California Crottin and Terra are both ripened with a Geotrichum rind – Terra in a 5-ounce round and the California Crottin in a 3-ounce round. The different size of the two cheeses makes for a distinctly different flavor profile as they ripen. Cameo is a seasonal cheese made in a Camembert style with spring and fall milk that’s high in butterfat, which makes it soften to a voluptuous creaminess. Seasonality is hard to do in the U.S., where consumers and chefs are accustomed to being able to find whatever they want to eat whenever they want it, but Bice is now finding that people are learning to accept the wait when the cheese is not available and getting excited about seeing it come back onto the market in its season. Much of the fresh chèvre is being made with milk from the farm, but the harder cheeses, such as Cheddar and feta, are made using a blend of milk from Redwood Hill Farm with milk produced from neighboring farms. The hard cheeses are made during the six months of the year when there’s a surplus of milk on the market and then sold year-round. Over time, Redwood Hill Farm added cultured milk products – yogurt and kefir – which today account for the bulk of the creamery’s production. After goat milk cheeses became popular, consumers, especially the adventurous Millennials, were drawn to the yogurt as well. “Thankfully, our business continues to grow,” Bice says. “We pride ourselves on having the best-tasting goat products.” Redwood Hill currently has about 72 employees, including six on the farm and a few marketing representatives who work outside the facility, leaving about 60 at the creamery working in the office, on the sanitation teams, making yogurt and kefir and seven employees specifically making cheeses. The creamery started making lactose-free products under the Green Valley Organics brand name a few years ago with organic cow milk from local farms. “We try to make dairy that everyone can enjoy,” Bice notes. None of the artisan cheeses are currently made with cow milk, although Bice is thinking about possibly doing some cheeses with a blend of cow milk and goat milk in the future. For now, that’s just an idea and some experiments. Bice feels that even though cheesemaking is a tradition that’s thousands of years old, there’s still plenty of room for creativity. Over the years, she’s seen a wide range of new cheeses come to be judged at the American Cheese Society meetings. While most are traditional flavors, cheesemakers are doing lots of experiments with different rind rubs for cheddars, for instance. Cheese has always been a product of varying flavors, since even in early times when farmers were taking their goats to the mountains in the summer and making their cheeses in a pot over an open fire, the cheesemakers didn’t have control over the environmental factors influencing the cheeses, and it only takes small changes in how they’re produced to make significant differences in the taste of a cheese. Cheeses continue to grow in popularity, and Americans’ tastes in

cheese continue to evolve as their interest grows. “It’s an exciting time to be a cheesemaker,” Bice says. “I love my business.... It’s nice to be able to have a business and decide things based on your own values.” Bice has never run her business in a fashion that would generate the highest possible profits; she runs it to make a reasonable profit and to exemplify her own ethical values. She provides a competitive wage and good benefits to her employees, including full health insurance for employees and their families. She has invested in solar arrays that now provide all of the power for the farm and 85 percent of the creamery’s needs, and the creamery’s water conservation efforts include storage tanks that capture natural water when it’s available and a water reclamation system that allows water to be reused a few times before it leaves the creamery for a treatment plant and eventually is used to water a hay crop. Redwood Hill Farm was the first Certified Humane goat dairy in the country, and today, all of the farms that supply milk to the creamery are Certified Humane. “We’re trying to be sustainable where we can and trying to make a difference,” Bice says. Rima, a national champion Alpine goat, seemed happy to hop up onto the milking stanchion for a snack of dairy ration offered by Bice’s youngest brother Scott, the farm manager at Redwood Hill Farm, to demonstrate milking. Her national championship, like those of many of the other goats on the farm, means that her kids, even the males, are highly valued, and the sale of kids and frozen semen from the Redwood Hill Farm herd adds a significant sum to the farm’s revenues. Once she’s past her milking days, at about 10 years of age, she’ll be retired to live out the rest of her life on the farm. “We figure that once they’ve worked all those years for us, we should give them the rest of their lives,” Scott says. Like every other farmer in the area, he is worried about the effects of drought. The farm has wells in shallow springs, and so far the water is holding, but he buys about 120 tons of hay a year to feed the 300 goats on the farm. Some of it comes from as far away as western Nevada, where farmers also had less water for their crops because they too depend on the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which was nearly nonexistent this year, so the cost of that hay is rising. Scott is dealing with that issue with an experiment in growing tagasaste, a droughttolerant shrub from New Zealand that’s grown there for animal forage. It’s a nitrogen-fixing shrub that’s highly regarded for its ability to sequester carbon, and it doesn’t need to be watered once it’s established because it actually grows two sets of roots – deep roots that pump water up into the tree from the groundwater and another set of shallow roots that absorb nutrients to feed the tree. It can be cut for forage that the goats The Cheese Guide

love, and then it resprouts and grows again. It’s performance on test acreage has convinced Scott to plant more in the future, and if the experiment succeeds, tagasaste can be an important feedstock for Redwood Hill Farm that won’t need to be irrigated. Dry Acres at Fiscalini Farms It is Brian Fiscalini’s one intention to take good care of the legacy left by his great-grandfather, a Swiss immigrant who started the family farm outside Modesto, California in 1914 with 12 Holstein cows. Square-jawed and broad-shouldered, with blond hair and an engaging grin, Fiscalini has the look that would get his headshot sent down from central casting to a movie director who needed a farmer for his film – if Hollywood still made movies about salt-of the-Earth people who grow food for a living. Each generation of his family has grown the farm in a different way. Brian’s father John added to the farm by building a cheese plant in 2000. John is now semi-retired, and Brian and his sister Laura, who run the farm today, are planning the contribution that they’ll make to that legacy. “We really do try as hard as we can to take care of our people, take care of our cows, and take care of our environment – the land. Sustainability is not a word that can be used just about environmental practices. It has to do with the culture that’s created here,” he says. “There are still two employees here that my grandfather hired, and he’s been gone for 22 years. One of those employees has two of his children working here. I like to see that. I like to see that there are people who see the job their father does and understand that it’s an important job, and they want to follow in his footsteps, and they want to be associated with our company and the things we stand for.” About 10 percent of the milk produced on the farm is used to make 1,400 pounds of cheese a day, five days a week, under the direction of Mariano Gonzalez, who made cheese on his family’s farm in Paraguay as a child, then came to the United States and made cheese at Shelburne Farms in Vermont. He started working for Fiscalini in 2001. “A giant weight was lifted off my father’s shoulders – he was always asking how he was going to make phenomenal award-winning cheese with no practical cheesemaking experience,” Brian says. “Mariano is still here. He’s teaching a new generation of cheesemakers. He has five cheesemakers working for him, and he is teaching them his trade, the art – and it truly is an art. You can’t just take great milk and turn it into great cheese. We are really hoping that the next generation of Fiscalini cheesemakers are taking that job seriously and understanding that they really are learning from a world-renowned master cheesemaker – that they’ll also eventually have the chance to create their own cheeses so that they can have their name associated with our products.” Those products include Fiscalini’s San Joaquin Gold, an American Original cheese made in 32-pound wheels and aged 12 months. Lionza is named after the Swiss village from which the family emigrated to the United States. It’s a traditional Swiss-style cheese with a semi-soft texture and irregular eyes. Fiscalini Bandage-Wrapped Cheddar has three times been named the world’s best cheddar at the World Cheese Awards and is the only 14

The Cheese Guide

American cheddar to win the award. The milk that doesn’t go to make cheese is currently sold to Nestlé, which has a plant in Modesto and uses the Fiscalini milk to make evaporated and condensed milk under the Carnation label. Fiscalini hopes that sometime in the next few years, that milk will instead be used to make value-added dairy products – either cheese or ice cream – right on the farm. “When you are in the business of making milk you are going to sell to somebody else, there are sometimes very bad years for milk prices when farmers can lose a large amount of money in a very short amount of time. When we’re allowing someone else to set our prices, we lose control,” Fiscalini says. “When we have the cheese business, we make our own prices. We can decide to sell our cheese at a reasonable but profitable price.... We can become price makers instead of price takers.” This year, the drought has challenged that dream. “In typical years, used to hose the driveways down to clean them off, with the water running into the field. In the past four months, we’ve been blowing them off with leaf blowers instead of using water,” Fiscalini says. “I don’t know how much water we’ve saved by doing that. I just felt that it’s the right thing to do. When neighbors drive by, they see that we care, that we’re not just sprinkling water on the driveway when there’s an alternative we can do to keep the facility clean.” Fiscalini pumps the water used to clean the dairy from California’s groundwater supply, which has diminished during the four-year drought. According to the California Department of Water Resources, reduced surface water availability during 2014 caused many farmers to make up some of the shortage by increasing their pumping from their irrigation wells, which dropped groundwater levels in many parts of the state 50 to 100 feet below their historical lows. Water is used to hose down the stalls and the lanes along which the cows walk as they parade into and out of the milking parlor three times a day, then recycled along with the water used to flush the lines from the milking machines and used again two or three more times before it’s finally delivered to a lagoon that stores it until it’s pumped onto the fields to water 470 acres of feed crops. “Even if we had all the water in the world – we’ve been practicing this for 20 years. It was done just because we thought it was the right thing to do. We’ve always believed in saving water and using resources responsibly. It’s what my grandfather did, and it’s in my blood,” Fiscalini says. “Over the past three to four years, we were looking into technologies that could take lagoon water and treat it so it could be returned for potable water uses. All of them have been so expensive relative to the cost of pumping water out of the wells that they’ve been cost-prohibitive. I really hope that in the coming years – I’m hoping less than five – that someone can come up with a technology that is cost-effective so farmers can reuse the water we have and get it to a potable state. As long as it could be used for wash-down cycles or any other use that didn’t require drinking water quality, it would be what we need. I think it would save a huge amount of water in our daily practices.” In years when he has enough water to irrigate them, Fiscalini grows three crops a year to minimize the amount of feed he has

to buy from other farmers. In the summer he grows corn for silage – vegetable matter that’s fed to animals without drying it; in the winter he grows wheat that’s either chopped for silage or bailed for hay, depending on weather; and in the spring he grows Sudan grass that’s either chopped or bailed before being fed to his cows. Most of his irrigation water comes from the Modesto Irrigation District, which stores snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada mountains and rainfall in northern California reservoirs and delivers the water to Fiscalini through two canals that run through the property. In a normal year, Fiscalini gets an allotment of 24 inches per acre. Last year, it was 20 inches, and this year, it was down to 16 inches. “If we hit 100 percent of our allotment, they’ll cut us off,” Fiscalini says. He expects to use the last of this year’s water allotment during corn season, so he’ll be fallowing half his acreage during Sudan grass season, which means he’ll have to supplement his homegrown feed with purchased forage that will affect his production costs significantly, since the cost of feed accounts for about 50 to 60 percent of the cost to produce milk. “This will be the first time in 20 years that we’ve ever had to do that. The value of that Sudan grass as a hay is about $170 per ton; as a silage it’s about $45 per ton. If we do hay, we can get 1.5 to 2 tons per acre; for silage, we get 10-12 tons per acre,” he says. “If we’re going to forego 200 or more acres, that’s $60,000 for hay that we will now have to go out and purchase for the cows rather than growing it ourselves. For silage, that would be $116,325 worth of silage that we will not be able to grow and that we will have to purchase from a neighbor or make

up for it with different ingredients. The drought will inevitably increase our cost of feed to the animals just because we can’t grow the feed ourselves.” Across the state, an estimated 565,000 acres were fallowed this year, almost all of it in California’s Central Valley, and abnormally high forage prices are causing California dairy farmers to cull their herds, resulting in less milk on the market, according to state agricultural economists who estimate a $250 million loss to California’s economy due to these factors alone. The canals that irrigate the Fiscalini Farms forage crops are higher than the fields around them, and as the water flows through them, it spills over the banks of the canals and out onto the fields. The practice is known as flood irrigation, and it puts Fiscalini and his farm in the midst of a controversy about whether California’s farmers deserve the water they use. Flood irrigation is frequently criticized, even by other farmers, as wasteful and inefficient because all of the water that pours onto the fields isn’t taken up by crops. “Flood irrigation uses a significant amount of water, but it’s also very important for flood irrigation to continue to be used because it replenishes the aquifer. We have looked into other irrigation systems said to conserve water, but they don’t do a very good job of replenishing the aquifer. That is a challenge that we are looking into – how do we tackle that challenge?” Fiscalini says. “We’re walking a fine line. We’re trying to do what we feel is the best thing, not only for our farms and our animals and our livelihood, but for California as a whole. We’re trying to take a community approach.”

The Cheese Guide

passion panache cheesemongers with

and

By Lorrie Baumann

Conner Pelcher I met Connor Pelcher, a Wholesale Account Manager for Murray’s Cheese, one morning over breakfast during the American Cheese Society’s Cheese Camp, after my attention was drawn to him by one of his co-workers who asked him if he was wearing his flamingo socks. He reared back in his chair and raised his leg above the table to demonstrate that, yes, the flamingo socks were sur les pieds. I missed seeing the matching flamingo shirt that he’d also bought after he’d run out of shirts during his stay at Cheese Camp. “I went to the mall, saw a flamingo shirt, and then I saw the flamingo socks,” he says. “As a salesperson, I like to dress in a way that people will remember. The better dressed you are, the more visually impactful you are. That might help people think about me when they have a question about cheese.” Pelcher started his career in the food industry as an escape from the reality that a college graduate with a degree in English has when realizing the limited options for 16

The Cheese Guide

turning that degree into a well-paid career. “Anyone who has a degree in English can tell you the feeling of fear you get when you get handed that diploma,” he says. “That fear led me back to Vermont, where I grew up.” Back in Vermont, he began exploring a passion for cooking and applied to the New England Culinary Institute. “I got a call the same week to say they loved my essay and were looking for people who were passionate and who were looking for a second career,” he says. After graduation from culinary school, he moved to New York and began moving up the ladder in white-tablecloth restaurants until he found himself the general manager of a restaurant and two bars in the East Village, and it dawned on him that he was having more to do with spreadsheets and personnel rosters than with actual food. “I took a step away from that and thought about where I could focus myself,” he says. “I had always been obsessed about beer and wine and cheese, so I sent a resume to Murray’s. I went in and got myself hired as

a junior sales person.” He still remembers what he said in that interview, he says. He mentioned “that cheese with the ash.” Humboldt Fog? the interviewer asked, and he agreed that, yes, that’s the one he had in mind. “It was laughable. Now I could talk to you for an hour about my favorite cheeses.” He’s now been at Murray’s for two years, has become an American Cheese Society Certified Cheese Professional and he’s now teaching some of the classes he attended to learn about cheese. Pelcher says he’s more excited now than he was when he started the job. “At Cheese Camp, I got to meet some cheese celebrities. I got to taste a million things that I never even would have known about,” he says. “The panels were incredible – some of the brightest minds, a confluence of some of the best thinkers that the cheese world has to offer. To be allowed to ask questions of them, to have four people that you deeply respect and that you read about answering a question for you.... Someday I’d like to be on one

of those panels and to have people look up at me and applaud.” Chad Farmer-Davis Chad Farmer Davis, a Kroger Enterprise Set-up Specialist who opens Murray’s Cheese Shops inside partner stores across the country, also remembers the job interview that led to his career in cheese. He’s from Illinois, and he’d never even seen a cheese shop when he applied six years ago for what was supposed to be just a summer job. “I said I was an expert. I ate Kraft every day,” he says. “That was my entire cheese knowledge six years ago – Kraft and Velveeta.” Much as he loves eating good cheeses now, his favorite part of his job is working with the people he meets as he travels the country, “training new cheese people and spreading the word on curd.” “There are literally so many crazy people in cheese culture. These are people that you tend to be attracted to,” he says. “When I was a kid, I was so focused on Star Wars. When I grew up, it transferred to cheese.” When he trains new cheesemongers who aren’t yet as obsessed as he is with cheese, he likes to point out that talking about cheese is an easy way to start a conversation with a stranger. “There are so many kinds of people, but most people love cheese, and you can definitely bond with people over cheese. You can start a conversation about cheese, and it leads to, oh, I made a new friend,” he says. “You can meet a lot of new and interesting people, and it makes you a better person because you’re learning so much about other people.” Like Pelcher, Farmer-Davis’ was once one of those liberal arts graduates willing to think for food. Now, he’s become one willing to spend the rest of his career thinking about food. “This is now a permanent career – one I thought I’d never have,” he says. “It was something that took me by surprise. I fell in love with it the very first day. I’m definitely not going to walk away from it, ever. It’s something that I love to do, and it makes my life extremely interesting.” Jill Davis Like Pelcher, Cheesemaster and ACS Certified-Cheese Professional Jill Davis

started out as a chef. She now works for Kroger at a new Murray’s Cheese Shop inside a Decatur, Georgia store, but before she joined Kroger, she was working for KitchenAid, teaching cooking classes and offering demonstrations to show kitchenware retailers how to use KitchenAid appliances. Before that, she’d worked at Sur Le Table teaching classes in cooking and knife skills, and she’s spent five years as a chocolatier. She intends for Kroger to be her last employer before she retires. She came to work for Kroger after KitchenAid closed its Atlanta facility. “I’d been a long-time customer of Murray’s and got an email that said, ‘Coming Soon to Atlanta,” she says. “I called directly to New York.” A Murray’s staffer in New York put her in touch with the Kroger hiring manager in Atlanta, who interviewed her for five minutes and then handed her an airline ticket to leave the next day for training in New York. “I got the whole Murray’s tour and then came back here and directly became a cheesemonger and in charge of the shop,” she says. “Murray’s is extremely thorough in training, not only about cheese, but about merchandising and the product itself. There are product sheets on every single thing you sell: name of the farmer, name of the cheesemaker, nutritional information, some factoids to help you remember it. You need to have all of this information before you even begin a demo, plus all of this information is on every single sign, which also contains pairings and information on pronunciation,” she continues. “They also bring in their people to teach you the proper way, the Murray’s way, of cutting each cheese within each family of cheeses and how they’re merchandised and displayed.” Her new shop has about 100 different cheeses, an olive and antipasti bar, a case of charcuterie, pickles, jams and chocolates. Crackers sit on top of he cheese cases. While most of the cheese is cut to order, there are also some grab-and-go precuts because many of the Kroger stores are open 24 hours a day and some customers choose not to interact with the cheesemonger. “For me, it’s all about the cheese. I like talking to my customers every day. I want

to have customers, people who come in and ask for me and say they’re having people over and want to know what to serve,” she says. “Everything – the bottom line – is customer service. It’s not all about the cheese; it’s all about the customer.”

Their Favorite Cheeses I asked each of our three Cheesemongers with Passion and Panache to tell me their favorite cheese, “right now, this minute.” After some initial protests that they all had any number of favorite cheeses, they managed to winnow the list down a bit. Connor Pelcher: “What I’ve been eating lately is Bayley Hazen Blue from Jasper Hill,” he says, adding that he’s upset that the cheese didn’t get the recognition he feels it deserves at this year’s American Cheese Society Awards. His second choice is St. Stephen from Four Fat Fowl Farm in Rensselaer, New York, which he describes as a BrillatSavarin style brie with a bloomy rind, light and very buttery with a fudgy texture to it. “It’s very consistently well made,” he says. “It’s been a great seller for me.” Third is a washed version of Jasper Hill’s Harbison called Greensward. “We take the cheese when it’s really young, maybe one or two days old, and wash it in local cider for six weeks,” he says. The Murray’s affinage gives the cheese a very intense, smoky taste with notes of dried fruit. “It’s fantastically gooey. It’s visually striking and delicious and completely unique – a taste of our New York City caves. I like to take that home to my family.” Chad Farmer-Davis managed to come up with a single favorite. “I would probably have to say Tarentaise [from Spring Brook Farm], which was last year’s American Cheese Society Best of Show winner. I kind of ignored it up until a month ago, and I’ve been on a Tarentaise kick,” he says. “Every few months I move on to my next cheese. Jill Davis gave us Sottocenere al Tartufo. “The wheel is coated with vegetable ash, and the cheese is sort of a semi-firm dotted with truffles,” she says. “When it hits room temperature, I just want to take a bath in it.” “And I also like Harbison,” she adds. “Who doesn’t like Harbison?” The Cheese Guide

FDA Finds Raw Milk Cheeses Riskier Than Pasteurized Milk Cheeses By Lorrie Baumann If you’re an average American, your risk of getting a serious case of listeriosis from eating one serving of a soft-ripened cheese like a brie or Camembert is about one in 8.6 billion if the cheese was made from pasteurized milk and about one in 5.5 million if the cheese was made from raw milk. To put those numbers into perspective, National Geographic estimates your chances of being struck by lightning as about 1 in 3,000 over your lifetime. Your chances of dying in an airline crash are around one in 11 million, according to a 2006 estimate published in the International Business Times. The risks of eating brie are outlined in a report from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition that was released on August 4. The study was conducted jointly with Health Canada, which used its own data to come up with considerably lower risks for Canadians. Their risk of developing a serious case of listeriosis from a serving of pasteurized cheese was one in 7.3 billion and one in 105 million for 18

The Cheese Guide

raw milk cheese. The report assumes the definition of a “serving” as an amount corresponding to how much a person might be likely to eat in a single day. That’s a risk that’s 157 times higher for a serving of a raw milk cheese over the risk of a pasteurized milk cheese in the U.S. and a 69 times higher risk in Canada. “The point was to ask the question about whether there’s any difference,” says Dr. Catherine Donnelly, a scientist at the University of Vermont who’s been studying Listeria monocytogenes for the past 32 years. “The risk assessment concludes that yes, there is more of a risk.” The difference in the risk according to whether you’re eating cheese in the U.S. or in Canada may have a lot to do with the fact that the Canadian study looked at reported cases of listeriosis from 2004 through mid-2009, while the FDA looked at data from 1986 to 2008. Including data from as far back as the 1980s could indicate a higher risk because it includes people who got sick from cheese made under different conditions than are usual today, according to Donnelly. “This suggests an

assumption that there have been no improvements in our ability to deal with Listeria since the 1980s,” she said. “We’ve learned a lot about Listeria in the last 30 years.” The risks of listeriosis from soft-ripened cheeses are much higher if you’re pregnant, elderly or have a compromised immune system. According to the FDA report, the risk of getting listeriosis in the U.S. from a serving of brie made from pasteurized milk is one in 136 million for the elderly, one in 55 million for a pregnant woman and one in 193 million for someone with a compromised immune system. For a cheese made from raw milk, the risk is one in 1.2 million for the elderly, one in 570,000 for a pregnant woman and one in 1.2 million for someone with a compromised immune system. “The big concern is invasive listeriosis. The report shows that, for communities at high risk, their risk if they eat raw milk cheese is much higher than if they were to eat pasteurized milk cheese,” said Carlos Yescas, Program Director of the Oldways Cheese Coalition. According to the FDA study, an elderly person who eats a serving of raw milk cheese rather than a pasteurized milk cheese increases the risk of developing invasive listeriosis by 112 times. The risk is 96 times higher for a pregnant woman and 157 times higher for someone with a compromised immune system. “This doesn’t tells us the absolute risk of pasteurized milk cheese,” Yescas said. “That risk is not zero.” Donnelly noted that the data from recent outbreaks of Listeria in the U.S. suggests that the elderly may be much more susceptible to listeriosis than had been previously thought. “That issue might need revisiting, as some of these latest outbreaks suggest that some of these elderly populations might be much more sensitive to lower doses of Listeria,” she said. “That remains in question.” The report notes that in the U.S. from 1986 to 2008, there were a total of 137 recalls of various types of cheeses, of which 108 were related to Listeria. There were 15 cheese recalls in Canada from 2004 through mid-2009, of which 11 were related to Listeria. While the report notes that most cases of listeriosis occur as

isolated instances, there have been 14 outbreaks of Listeria in the U.S. between 1985 and 2013. They resulted in a total of 270 illnesses and 66 deaths. Of those instances, 14 outbreaks, nine were caused by Mexican-style cheeses, including queso fresco, queso cotija and asadero; one was caused by a chive cheese, one by a blueveined aged cheese, one by ricotta and one by a soft-ripened cheese. This risk assessment considers only the risks of brie and Camembert. Donnelly suggested that, in limiting its study to only brie and Camembert-type cheese consumption in the U.S. and Canada, the FDA may be ignoring valuable information developed in other countries with similarly sophisticated food safety science around cheeses made in other styles. “The concern is, say, French Roquefort, raw milk cheese. Different countries look at different categories differently,” she said. “Australia did a very lengthy risk assessment concluding that the level of risk for Roquefort was similar to pasteurized milk, and so they allow its importation into Australia.” Overall, the risk of developing listeriosis from any kind of cheese is much less than the chance of contracting a foodborne illness from other foods, according to Donnelly. “Produce is the product sector that’s causing most of our foodborne illness outbreaks, which raises the question about, for our most susceptible populations, do we get rid of fresh produce? And does that spread to other populations? Fresh fruits and vegetables are not sterile food products, so what do we do about that?” she asked. “If I were running a nursing home, I’d be buying pasteurized eggs. If I were eating breakfast with my family, I’d be eating regular eggs.” The Cheese Guide

extra

specialty cheese with a little

flavor By Richard Thompson

Historically maligned as a novelty in the cheese segment, American consumers are embracing flavored cheeses that are being offered by specialty cheese companies. More dairy farms and cheese companies are offering products with additional flavorings, like Sriracha and dill, that cater to both sophisticated and adventurous tastes through a growing variety of award-winning flavored cheeses. Companies like Country Connection Cheese Company, Nicasio Valley Cheese Company and Cypress Grove Chevre are receiving influential awards in the dairy industry for their flavored cheeses: Country Connection’s Sriracha Cheddar, Nicasio Valley’s Foggy Morning with Basil and Garlic and Cypress Grove’s Truffle Tremor. “I think flavored cheeses, when done well, are popular because they expand the specialty cheese category with interesting options for the consumer,” says Ellen Valter, Brand Manager of Country Connection. Interest in flavored cheese has intensified in the last few years with flavored cheeses now making up seven percent of the total cheese category, according to the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board (WMMB). Heather Porter Engwall, Director of National Product Communications at WMMB, says that for the last five years flavored cheeses have outperformed unflavored cheeses in both volume and dollar sales with year-to-date dollar sales of flavored cheeses up more than 8 percent. “Trends we see within the specialty cheese category are, of course, flavor,” says Porter Engwall, “Be it hot and spicy, sweet and savory, fruity or nutty, Americans continue to enjoy a heightened taste experience.” Country Connection started creating new taste sensations by adding ingredients to high-quality cheese and was recently awarded the gold medal at the Los Angeles International Dairy Competition for its peppery Sriracha Cheddar cheese. According to Valter, the Sriracha Cheddar is a top-seller in the 17-cheese line the company offers and is made with all natural Sriracha for a spicy cheddar blend that goes excellently with beer. The company also offers Chipotle Cheddar, Basil Garlic Jack Cheese, and Applewood Smoked Gouda – one of the three smoked cheeses in their line. The Chipotle Cheddar is made with cumin, garlic, red chile peppers and chipotle. “Chipotle Cheddar is my personal favorite because its smoky and complex flavor profile makes it one of the few cheddars that pairs well with a full-bodied red wine,” says Valter. Nicasio Valley Cheese Company, a farmstead cheese company that is part of the Lafranchi Dairy, has won numerous awards – 22

The Cheese Guide

including second place in the Fromage Blanc category in 2011, 2012 and 2014 at the American Cheese Society (ACS) – for its Foggy Morning cheese. Foggy Morning with Basil and Garlic is a flavorful extension of that flagship product. “Our Foggy Morning with Basil and Garlic is just like our original, but we add basil and fresh garlic to it,” says Scott Lafranchi, Partner at Nicasio Valley Cheese Company. This cheese is a very soft, very creamy cheese that carries a tang with it where you can still taste the milk in the cheese, says Lafranchi. “It’s such a versatile cheese; I think it’s great on a bagel. On salads, it’s really good.” 2015 has been a good year for Cypress Grove Chevre and its flavored cheeses, according to Bob McCall, Sales Director for Cypress Grove Chevre. The company’s PsycheDillic goat cheese placed first at this year’s ACS awards in the Fresh Goat With Flavor Added category, while the company’s Truffle Tremor Mini and Truffle Tremor Original placed second and third respectively in the Soft-Ripened with Flavor Added category. PsycheDillic is infused with dill weed and dill pollen, making it the top bagel-topping choice that will persuade consumers that they don’t want to go back to plain cream cheese, according to McCall. “People who buy this cheese already like dill, but end up trying something brand new from the dill pollen and fresh goat cheese,” says McCall. The company’s Truffle Tremor Mini and Truffle Tremor Original – northern Italian truffle-infused goat cheeses – were born like most great innovations; by accident. After Mary Keehn, the Founder of Cypress Grove Chevre, tried creating a new fresh chevre flavor that underwhelmed during an initial taste test, the wheels were left in the aging cooler for three weeks before anyone remembered they were there. But when they did remember their existence, the Cypress Grove folks fell in love with the taste. “I kid you not, 60 seconds went by before anyone spoke,” recalls McCall, “We were stunned by how good it was.” Cypress Grove Chevre is a cheese company that prides itself on the uniqueness of its names and their allusions to their northern California zeitgeist. Herbs de Humboldt, for instance, which sports locally harvested herbes de Provence, is monickered with a tonguein-cheek allusion to one of the region’s better-known cash crops. “Its wonderful on pasta or as a substitute for cream and pairs well with almost any beer, red ale and Sauvignon blanc,” says McCall.

Marin French Cheese,

grounded in

tradition

& MOVING FORWARD

By Lorrie Baumann In 1865, Samuel L. Clemens was living in San Francisco, writing articles for newspapers and wondering if he had any shot at a career as a humorist. He was also apparently drinking quite a lot, which means that there actually is some chance that he tasted the Breakfast Cheese made by Jefferson Thompson, who founded his west Marin County dairy farm that year. He sold the cheese he made in the creamery that would eventually become known as Marin French Cheese to San Francisco saloons who sold it to their customers. No, Marin French Cheese’s official history doesn’t document any consumption by the writer who’s best known today as Mark Twain, but there’s no way to prove it didn’t happen, after all. What we do know is that Thompson launched his Thompson Brothers Creamery in 1865 on a 700-acre dairy ranch that’s now known as Hicks Valley Ranch near Petaluma, California. He sent his Thompson cheese by horse and wagon and then by boat to San Francisco’s saloons, where dock workers began calling it “Breakfast Cheese.” Thompson’s two sons, Jeff Thompson, Junior and Rudolph Thompson, took over the creamery in the early 20th century, and Jeff, Jr. traveled to Connecticut to learn to make European styles such as Camembert, Brie and Neufchatel. He branded his Frenchstyle cheese Rouge et Noir, French for “Red and Black.” In the 1990s, Marin French Cheese was acquired by cattle rancher and real estate developer Jim Boyce, who modernized the cheese plant and expanded distribution of the Marin French cheeses. In 2005, Marin French Cheese achieved distinction as the first U.S. company to be awarded Gold in a European competition for Triple Crème Brie, besting the French in that category. The 2014 World Cheese Awards in London honored Marin French Triple Crème Brie cheeses with three out of four awards in the softripened category, awarding a Super Gold to a new cheese, Supreme. Following that win, the company’s legacy cheese, Petite Breakfast, was selected as a winner in the 2015 Good Food Awards, recognizing authentic and responsibly produced food. After Boyce’s untimely death in 2010, Marin French Cheese was acquired by The Rians Group of France, which has since modernized the creamery with state-of-the-art equipment and aging rooms, new packaging with redesigned labels and an expansion of the retail shop on the creamery property. Rians, a 24

The Cheese Guide

French company that specializes in farmstead cheeses with European AOC and AOP identities, bought Marin French Cheese with the knowledge that the company operates in a very environmentally conscious community and saw a fit that matched Rians’ environmental ethics and respect for the places in which its cheeses are created, said Eva Guilmo, Quality and Food Safety Manager for both Marin French Cheese and Laura Chenel’s Chevre, which was acquired by Rians in 2006. “Rians Group is built on having many small creameries that have terroir and a close relationship with their environment,” she said. As it modernizes operations at both Marin French Cheese and Laura Chenel’s Chevre, the company is working closely with the federal Food and Drug Administration as well as state regulators, Guilmo said. “We’re working on the design of the machines to ensure that they comply with the rules and even go beyond them in terms of standards of cleanliness and food safety. The dairy inspector comes every three months and we discuss the requirements for the dairy industry,” she said. “With the implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act, the FDA is moving from a system of management of corrective actions to a system of anticipation of the risks with the implementation of prerequisite programs which are good practices to run a food manufacturing plant. They’re asking more about control points and trends management before serious problems arise and require the manufacturer to issue a recall. We’re moving from a corrective era to a proactive era in food safety.” Industry self-policing is also helping to ensure that consumers are getting the safe cheese they want, she said, noting that the large retailers have begun asking their suppliers to provide products that meet consumer demands, such as dairy products made without the use of rBST, the bovine growth hormone that increases milk production when injected into dairy cows. “The use of rbST was approved as safe by the FDA. The FDA found that there is no significant difference between milk derived from rbST-treated and non-rbST treated cows, but the distributors want rBST-free milk. The same thing is happening with GMOs,” she said. “Consumers are always pulling us forward before the government does. By the time the government acts, we’ve heard about it, and it’s already being discussed, which is a big advantage.”

CHEESE LISTINGS COMPANY

CHEESE NAME

PACKAGE SIZE FOR THE SERVICE DELI

SRP

PACKAGE SIZE FOR THE CHEESE CASE

SRP

HIGHLIGHTS

Midnight Moon

9-pound wheel

$26/lb.

—

This award-winning goat cheese is so good that it has garnered its own following. One reviewer says, “Midnight Moon is pure cheese porn.” Aged six months or more, this blushing, ivory-colored cheese is dense and smooth with a slight crunch of protein crystals that form naturally with aging. Made in Holland exclusively for Cypress Grove Chevre, Midnight Moon is nutty and brown buttery up front with a long caramel finish.

Lamb Chopper

9-pound wheel

$26/lb.

—

Lamb Chopper is a semi-soft aged sheep’s milk cheese that tastes so good you’ll race back for more. This insanely delicious cheese has fans of all ages across the globe. Aged just three to six months, this sheep’s milk cheese develops a deep buttery color and smooth texture. Made in Holland exclusively for Cypress Grove Chevre, Lamb Chopper is a standout wherever it goes. Melt between rustic sliced bread for a grilled cheese everyone will love.

AGED SEMI-HARD Cypress Grove Chevre

AMERICAN-MADE INTERNATIONAL STYLE Arthur Schuman

Guggisberg

Cello Riserva Traditional Romano

—

6-ounce bag, 7-9-ounce RW bag, 5-ounce cup, 20-pound wheel, 8-ounce wedge, 7-9-ounce RW wedge

—

Award-winning Cello Riserva Traditional Romano from Arthur Schuman Inc. is 100 percent pure Romano with the taste of pecorino. The cheese is naturally aged for a minimum of six months to develop its light sheep’s milk notes. The slightly sharp, robust Italian flavor makes it a power player in the kitchen.

Guggisberg Premium Swiss

6/8 Swiss Cuts – 8 pounds, 3/8 Swiss Cuts – 24 pounds

$5.99/lb.

Swiss Chunk – 12/12ounce – 9 pounds

$5.99/lb.

Guggisberg’s United States Grand Champion Premium Swiss cheese has a unique blend of mild, slightly nutty flavors that have been the Guggisberg tradition from the very beginning. Judged as the number one cheese in America, it is simply the best of the best.

Cave Aged Marisa

10-pound wheel

$19.25/lb.

1/2-pound pieces

$19.25/lb.

A sheep milk cave - aged beauty! This natural-rind variety gets its complex, sweet and slightly rambunctious flavors from open-air cave aging. As a judges favorite, Cave Aged Marisa has won many prestigious awards including First Runner Up for Best of Show at the 2011 American Cheese Society, First Place at the 2012 World Championship Cheese Contest, and First Place at the 2013 U.S. Championship Cheese Contest

Cocoa Cardona

10-pound wheel for service deli

$16.95/lb.

1/2-pound pieces

$16.95/lb.

Chocolate and cheese unite beautifully in this award-winning American Original. Featuring Carr Valley’s delicious Cardona, aged and rubbed with cocoa powder. The cocoa flavor is subtle, the rind a lovely brown, and the end result like nothing you’ve ever tasted.

Humboldt Fog

1-pound and 3-pound cuts

$28/lb. for 1-lb. pkg $26/lb. for 3-lb. pkg

—

Humboldt Fog’s subtle, tangy flavor and distinctive layer of edible vegetable ash combine for an unforgettably tasty mouthful that makes this cheese an iconic American original. Try it with crisp apples, a drizzle of honey, IPA or Sauvignon Blanc.

Sartori Reserve Citrus Ginger BellaVitano

—

4-6-ounce random weight or exact weight wedge

$5.99 $6.99

Citrus Ginger BellaVitano® is a delightful cheese that is hand rubbed with a unique and exotic blend of spices including ginger and citrus. The flavors work well with the slightly fruity, creamy, tangy notes of the BellaVitano cheese.

AMERICAN ORIGINAL Carr Valley Cheese Co. Inc.

Cypress Grove Chevre

Sartori

The Cheese Guide

COMPANY

CHEESE NAME

PACKAGE SIZE FOR THE SERVICE DELI

SRP

PACKAGE SIZE FOR THE CHEESE CASE

SRP

HIGHLIGHTS

BISCUITS & CRACKERS Artisan Hors D’Oeuvre Crackers

—

$5.29

Partners Artisan Hors D’Oeuvre Crackers are excellent for creating elegant party platters. Available in a variety of flavors, including customer favorites Roasted Garlic & Rosemary, Olive Oil & Sea Salt, and the most recent addition, Everything & More. Approximately 5-ounce cartons, six cartons per case.

Cello Whisps

—

2.12-ounce bag

—

Cello Whisps are the perfect snack food, made from just one ingredient, 100 percent pure Parmesan cheese. The amazing taste makes Whisps a craveable snack consumers can’t get enough of. Whisps are made with Cello’s award-winning Copper Kettle Parmesan cheese baked into flavorful, airy, crispy — whispy! — bites.

Avonlea Clothbound Cheddar

—

Made on Prince Edward Island, Canada, Avonlea Clothbound Cheddar is handmade in the style of the great traditional English Cheddars. The cloth, which is applied to the exterior of the wheels, allows the cheese to breathe, resulting in a rich, robust flavor.

Neighborly Farms of Vermont

Organic Cheddar

Random weight, approximately 5-pound blocks

$12.99/lb.

Random weight, approximately 7-ounce bars

$12.99/lb.

Neighborly Farms of Vermont is an all organic family dairy farm in Central Vermont. Three generations have worked the land, raised a grazing dairy herd, and now make award-winning organic cheeses in the farm’s creamery. Call Luke at 888.212.6898 for more information.

Organic Pastures

Truly Raw Cheddar

1 pound, 5 pounds

—

.5 pound

—

Hand crafted in small batches, this delicious, creamy cheddar is skillfully crafted by artisan cheesemakers who take care never to heat above 102 degrees. Many raw cheeses on the market today are heated to temperatures well over 102 degrees, killing off the beneficial bacteria, destroying enzymes, and denaturing proteins. Although these other “raw cheeses” are not technically pasteurized, the health benefits and quality simply aren’t there.

Truly Raw Shredded Cheddar

8 ounces

—

8 ounces

—

TRULY RAW shredded cheddar cheese is made with 100 percent organic, Grade A, raw whole milk from cows that pasture-graze daily. This creamy Cheddar has a delicious mild aroma, with a delightful flavor that offers a rich cheese tasting experience. This raw Cheddar is handcrafted; artisan-made using traditional cheesemaking techniques and seasoned only with kosher sea salt.

Arthur Schuman

Dodoni Greek Feta

—

5.3-ounce, 6.3-ounce and 7-ounce vacuum pack, 5.3-ounce, 7-ounce and 14-ounce tubs

—

The PDO Greek Feta from Arthur Schuman has a salty, mildly acidic taste coupled with a pleasant flavor and aroma. Produced from both pasteurized goat’s and sheep’s milk, Dodoni Greek Feta is known for its superb exhilarating taste, brilliant quality and creamy smooth texture.

Klondike Cheese

Odyssey Traditional Crumbled Feta Cheese

8-ounce, 6-ounce, 4-ounce square retail cup, 2-pound and 1-pound bags

—

8-ounce, 6-ounce, 4-ounce square retail cup

—

Odyssey Traditional Crumbled Feta is a healthy addition to salads and main dishes. Crumble feta on your pizza or use in your chicken breast as a low-fat ingredient with robust flavor. No matter where you add it, feta flavor will send your tastebuds on their way to experience their own Odyssey.

Neighborly Farms of Vermont

—

Random weight, approximately 5-pound blocks

$12.99/lb.

Random weight, approximately 7-ounce bars

$12.99/lb.

PARTNERS www.partnerscrackers.com

Arthur Schuman

CHEDDAR Cows Creamery

FETA

The Cheese Guide

COMPANY

CHEESE NAME

PACKAGE SIZE FOR THE SERVICE DELI

SRP

PACKAGE SIZE FOR THE CHEESE CASE

SRP

HIGHLIGHTS

Fresh Basil and Garlic Jack

7-pound loaf

$9.99/lb.

½ pound pre-pack

$9.99/lb.

A favorite of all who try this cheese. This semi-soft and mild Monterey Jack is laced with fresh-cut basil and garlic. It is a profitable addition to the cheese case and adds visual interest to your selection. Perfect cubed for party trays at holiday season.

Odyssey Cranberry Crumbled Feta Cheese

4-ounce deli cup

—

4-ounce deli cup

—

Odyssey Cranberry Crumbled Feta is a healthy addition to salads and dishes for your next party. It’s tangy and tart flavor can complement your favorite spread, or use it in your next holiday recipe for a pinch of color and great taste.

Odyssey Sweet Heat Crumbled Feta Cheese

6-ounce square cup

—

6-ounce square cup

—

A fiery blend of red, green and habanero peppers that will excite your mouth but finishes smooth with the tanginess of the feta cheese. Add a little to mix into your next spread or favorite main dish to give it the just right kick.

Jalapeño Goat Cheese

—

4 ounces

$3.99$4.99

Montchevré’s Jalapeño Goat Cheese has a hot and spicy kick with a big-bang flavor. Striking a perfect balance between fresh and creamy goat cheese with the spicy bite of jalapeño peppers, this cheese is hot but easy to eat. Kick back and enjoy this festive and fiery cheese with an ice cold beer.

Dodoni Goat Cheese

—

7-ounce vacuum pack, 14 ounces in brine

—

Produced exclusively from pasteurized goat’s milk from the Epirus region of Greece, Dodoni Goat Cheese from Arthur Schuman is a delightful cheese that has a tangy, salty flavor and smooth, rich texture. Enjoy it on salads, or spread it on crusty bread.

Pumpkin Goat Cheese Log

—

4 ounces

$3.99$4.99

Montchevré’s Pumpkin Goat Cheese log is the newest addition to the Montchevré fresh goat cheese line. The delectable combination of fresh and creamy goat cheese blended with sweet, earthy and rich pumpkin is delightful. Reminiscent of a beautiful fall day, this cheese will definitely be a treat for all pumpkin lovers.

Golden Harvest Gouda

22 pounds

$12

5-8 ounces

$12

God’s Country Creamery Gouda has a melt-in-your-mouth, buttery texture and a pleasantly mellow flavor. This mild cheese expresses a subtle nuttiness leaving a suggestion of cedar undertones.

Appel Farms Gouda

10- to 12-pound wheels

$9.95$12.95/lb.

¼ to 1/2-pound wedge

Varies

Gouda is one of the most popular cheeses in the world, accounting for 50-60 percent of the world’s cheese consumption. Made in the traditional manner, Appel Farms Gouda starts with milk fresh from the 1,000 cow dairy. Appel Farms Gouda is a creamy, nutty, semi-hard artisan cheese.

7-ounce roll

$6.99$7.99

7-ounce roll

$6.99$7.99

Formaggio Brand pre-sliced meat and cheese rolls in the following varieties: Prosciutto, Prosciutto & Basil, Pepperoni, Capicola, Genoa Salami, Soppressata & Italian Spices; combine the luxurious creamy texture and taste of their award-winning Fresh Mozzarella with the finest in Italian style deli meats by handrolling them together perfectly. Formaggio Brand pre-sliced chubs are 7ounces each with eight thick slices. Perfect in recipes or alone as appetizers.

FLAVORED CHEESE Country Connection

Klondike Cheese

Montchevre

GOAT CHEESE Arthur Schuman

Montchevré

GOUDA God’s Country Creamery

Appel Farms

MOZZARELLA Formaggio Cheese

The Cheese Guide

Formaggio Brand Pre-Sliced Meat and Cheese Specialty Rolls

COMPANY

CHEESE NAME

PACKAGE SIZE FOR THE SERVICE DELI

SRP

PACKAGE SIZE FOR THE CHEESE CASE

SRP

HIGHLIGHTS

Appel Farms Paneer

4.5 pound

—

1/8 pound

—

Paneer is a semi-soft fresh cheese with a high melting point, and a mild milky flavor. Paneer is used in East Indian cooking which is becoming increasingly popular in the US. Appel Farms Paneer is all natural, gluten and gelatin free.

Applewood Smoked Gouda

12-pound wheel

$9.99/lb.

1/2-pound pre-pack

$9.99/lb.

The creamy, smooth and mellow Gouda is gently enhanced with natural applewood smoke and is a go-to deli cheese for customers. This is a profitable, all-natural addition to the cheese case with attractive label.

String Cheese, String Whips and Artisan Cuts

—

Artisan Cuts: 6 ounces, String Whips: 8 ounces, String Cheese: 10 - 12 ounces

$3.99 for Artisan Cuts and String Whips, $4.99 for String Cheese

Introducing fun new ways to snack. String Whips, Artisan Cuts and Meat String Cheese will add excitement to your dairy case and were created to entice customers of all ages. String Whips, available in Creamy Original and Ranch varieties, are Burnett Dairy’s award-winning string cheese in a fun spaghetti-like shape. These are ideal for kids and adults and will add excitement to lunches, salads and snacking occasions. Artisan Cuts are an easy, new way to snack and entertain. With no cutting and no mess, Artisan Cuts are cracker-cut sized with a hand-cut appearance. Seven on-trend flavors: Bacon & Onion Colby, Roasted Garlic Monterey Jack, Italian Sundried Tomato Monterey Jack, Rosemary Cheddar, Aged Cheddar, Fancy Jack and Colby, are perfect for snacking, cooking and entertaining. Add excitement to the string cheese section by offering natural meat blended in with Burnett Dairy’s award-winning string cheese. Perfect for on-thego snacking, these varieties offer extra protein and great flavor for cheese lovers of all ages.

Cello Rich & Creamy Mascarpone

—

1-pound cup, 5-pound tub

—

Award-winning Cello Rich & Creamy Traditional Italian Style Mascarpone from Arthur Schuman is crafted by artisans who take great pride in the Cello name. The cheese is made from fresh cow’s milk and sweet cream with no preservatives. Its delicate, sweet flavor and smooth consistency is handcrafted, delivering the expertise of Italian mascarpone cheesemakers.

Guggisberg Premium Swiss

6/8 Swiss Cuts – 8 pounds and 3/8 Swiss Cuts – 24 pounds

$5.99/lb.

12/12 ounce – 9 pounds Swiss chunks

$5.99/lb.

United States Grand Champion Premium Swiss cheese has a unique blend of mild, slightly nutty flavors that have been the Guggisberg tradition from the very beginning. Judged as the number one cheese in America, it is simply the best of the best.

Ludington Lace

22 pounds

$14/lb.

5-8 ounces

$14/lb.

Ludington Lace is an aged Alpine-style cheese that exhibits a touch of Old World essence. This lacy Swiss cheese is exclusively made during the lush pasture season when the grasses are the sweetest. The resulting taste is a sweet, rich flavor unique to traditional Swiss-type cheese.

PANEER Appel Farms

SMOKED CHEESE Country Connection

SNACKING Burnett Dairy Cooperative

SOFT CHEESE Arthur Schuman

SWISS Guggisberg Cheese

God’s Country Creamery

The Cheese Guide

FEATURED PRODUCTS Country Connection Cheese Company Wins with Customers Interview with Mehis Vahtra, Owner of Country Connection Cheese Company. TCG: Tell me about Country Connection Cheese Company. MV: We’re the 40-year old cheese company you’ve never heard of, aren’t we? We started out as a distributor of Wisconsin cheese into the Chicagoland area, and back before the Great American Cheese Renaissance, as I like to call it, company founder Omer Reese started developing new products with small, family-run cheesemaking companies. And so it is that today Country Connection has 17 cheese varieties to offer, most of them proprietary to our company. TCG: Do you make cheese? MV: While we own the proprietary

recipes, we know better than to be masters at every variety of cheese. What we do is have cheesemakers (in most cases certified Master Cheesemakers) make the cheese to our specifications. Some excel at Gouda, others at jacks or Cheddars, and so we feel that we get experts making each of our cheeses. We think it works, and so do our retailers and their customers. TCG: How do you come up with these recipes? MV: We get asked that alot, because our flavor profiles are unique and complex. What we try to do is to pair up the variety of cheese with the right flavors – not every flavor works in every cheese, of course. Some flavors are best rubbed onto the surface, others incorporated into the paste, such as our jacks, and yet

Cheddars from COWS CREAMERY Located on beautiful Prince Edward Island, Canada, COWS CREAMERY began making cheddar cheese in 2006. After a visit to the Orkney Islands in the Northern Isles of Scotland sparked the owners’ love of cheese, COWS CREAMERY started developing a Cheddar recipe with the help of a cheesemaker from the Orkney Islands. Having been in the ice cream industry since 1983, COWS was no stranger to delicious, high-quality dairy products! COWS CREAMERY first developed Avonlea Clothbound Cheddar. With its recipe coming from the Orkney Islands, it is handmade in the style of the great traditional English Cheddars. The

milk of Holstein cows from the small local farms in the rolling hills of Prince Edward Island is gently heated, but not pasteurized, to allow beneficial microbes to thrive and give depth of character and flavor. The salt air and iron-rich soil of Prince Edward Island combine to add flavor and quality to this Cheddar. Awarded Canada’s Best Cheddar at the 2015 Canadian Cheese Grand Prix, this highly sought-after Cheddar is a must-try for any cheese lover. COWS CREAMERY next introduced an Extra Old Cheddar. Aged for two years, this Extra Old Cheddar provides a smooth, firm texture with long, complex, rich, and full bodied flavors with a

Organic Goodness from Neighborly Farms Neighborly Farms of Vermont is an all-organic family dairy farm in central Vermont. Rob and Linda Dimmick, along with their son Bobby and his wife Brooke, are continuing the family farming tradition because they have a passion for the land and animals.

Neighborly Farms is totally organic. This means that the farm is run in complete harmony with the land and the animals, with no antibiotics, no hormones and no commercial fertilizers. Only pureand natural techniques are used to keep the cows healthy and happy,

others work best in Cheddar, added after milling. We strive to coax out a third flavor that becomes apparent after the cheese and the flavors age together. TCG: What’s new at Country Connection, and what is old? MV: According to the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, the U.S. flavored cheese market has grown from our pioneering days to now be $1.5 billion. We introduced our fresh herb cheeses over 20 years ago, and they’ve been a joy on the palate ever since. Their fresh taste and meltability makes these jacks extremely popular. The second thing that we were at the forefront of way back when, was to smoke cheese over applewood. We’ve been doing this for decades, and our Applewood Smoked Gouda is a bestseller, year in, year out. Our newest variety is the Sriracha Cheddar. It’s simply excellent, marrying high

quality Cheddar with an all-natural sriracha. Customers love it. TCG: What do customers say? MV: Customers are grateful for a cheese that they can serve with confidence. Our cheeses add variety to the cheeseboard and make for excellent ingredient cheeses too. We’ve paired up with a cookbook author to develop recipes using Country Connection cheeses, and these recipe cards have proven to be very popular. The recipes encourage healthy eating – one recipe that has customers raving is the Sweet Potato and Chipotle Cheddar Cheese Ball. Orange vegetables that are so good for you, combined with the zip of Country Connection’s Chipotle Cheddar – it’s a home run. For further information, visit www.countryconnection cheese.com or call 312.421.2658.

tangy bite at the end. COWS CREAMERY Extra Old Cheddar was awarded World’s Best Aged Cheddar at the 2014 World Champion Cheese Contest. In 2012, COWS CREAMERY introduced its Appletree Smoked Cheddar to the marketplace. COWS CREAMERY Appletree Smoked Cheddar is made by naturally smoking its award-winning Extra Old Cheddar over an eight-hour period with an all-natural apple wood cold smoke. COWS CREAMERY Appletree Smoked Cheddar is has a full, smoky flavor that is deliciously mouth-watering and is perfect for cooking or eating on its own. COWS CREAMERY Appletree Smoked Cheddar was awarded World’s Best Smoked

Cheddar at the World Championship Cheese Contest in 2014. COWS CREAMERY prides itself on making delicious-tasting, highquality products. In doing so, it is important to use milk from the small, local dairy farms in Prince Edward Island. This high-quality milk adds flavor to the Cheddar and is a very important ingredient. COWS CREAMERY products are available throughout Canada and the USA. Various distributors work with COWS CREAMERY in Canada. To get more detailed information, visit the website at www.cowscreamery.ca. Gourmet Foods International is COWS CREAMERY’S U.S. distributor and can be contacted via its website at www.gfifoods.com.

and the dairy products wholesome and chemical free. It means that the cheese produced at Neighborly Farms, Cheddars, Feta, Colby and Monterey Jack, are pure and natural. And the best part? The organic cheeses

taste great too. For more information, call the farm at 888.212.6898. Write to 1362 Curtis Road, Randolph Center, VT 05061 or email neighborlyfarms@msn.com. The Cheese Guide

Gruyère AOP is one of a kind, and it is the only cheese that can be called Gruyère AOP Switzerland. It’s made from the raw milk of cows sustained in the same local fields since 1115 AD, then slow-aged in local cellars and caves. The uniquely smooth, savory true flavor you will find only in Le

Gruyère AOP is 100 percent natural, 100 percent additive free, and naturally free of lactose and gluten. Gruyère AOP is the perfect complement to your cuisine. For a smooth and mild, yet extremely satisfying taste, Le Gruyère Classic is aged for a minimum of five months. Le Gruyère Reserve, which has been

aged for 10 months or more, has a smooth but more robust flavor. Both varieties are great in recipes or sliced as a snack. Either way, your customers are sure to enjoy the only cheese that has this distinct tradition. For more information about Le Guyere, visit gruyere.com

crobes to thrive and give depth of character and flavor. The salt air and iron-rich soil of Prince Edward Island combine to add flavor and quality to this Cheddar. Awarded Canada’s Best Cheddar at the 2015 Canadian Cheese Grand Prix, this highly sought-after Cheddar is a must-try for any cheese lover. COWS CREAMERY also

makes an Extra Old Cheddar and an Appletree Smoked Cheddar. COWS CREAMERY Extra Old Cheddar is aged for two years and provides a smooth, firm texture with long, complex, rich, and full bodied flavors with a tangy bite at the end. COWS CREAMERY Appletree Smoked Cheddar is made

by naturally smoking COWS CREAMERY Extra Old Cheddar over an eight- hour period with an allnatural apple wood cold smoke. Both Cheddars have received numerous awards. Most notably, they were awarded World’s Best at the World Championship Cheese Contest in 2014.

mitment to state-of-the-art cheesemaking while remaining true to authentic recipes and tradition,” said Teena Buholzer, Marketing Director at Klondike Cheese Company. “We understand what our feta cheese customer likes and responds to, and we designed our Odyssey feta packaging to appeal to that demographic. “ Klondike’s all-natural, glutenfree, rBST-free Odyssey feta

cheese is firm yet crumbly, tangy and salty to the taste but never bitter. Its unique flavor pairs well with all types of food, from pizzas to salads to Mediterranean-inspired dishes. Klondike has mastered the craft of Greek-style feta for more than 25 years, with accolades to prove it: Odyssey feta is a first-place World Champi-

onship Cheese Contest winner and winner in the American Cheese Society competition and it has also received honors from the Wisconsin State Fair. For more information about Klondike Cheese and Odyssey, including detailed information about retail and food service bulk products, visit www.klondikecheese.com.

The Only Gruyère AOP in the World, 900 Years in the Making In 1115 AD, a cheese was discovered in western Switzerland in a beautiful region with rolling fields, scenic mountains, and a majestic castle. This place, called Gruyères, is the origin of Le Gruyère AOP. Gruyère AOP is hand-made in 170 small batches with the same recipe for over 900 years.

World’s Best Cheddars from COWS CREAMERY Avonlea Clothbound Cheddar’s recipe comes from the Orkney Islands in the Northern Isles of Scotland, and is handmade in the style of the great traditional English Cheddars. The milk of Holstein cows from the small local farms in the rolling hills of Prince Edward Island, Canada, is gently heated, but not pasteurized, to allow beneficial mi-

New Look for Odyssey The new Odyssey ® look for Klondike showcases Klondike’s masterfully authentic cheese with Greek-inspired imagery, emphasizing the authentic Greek tradition used by Klondike’s five master cheese makers. The eye-catching new packaging is designed to appeal to customers and increase retail sales velocity. “Our new Odyssey packaging highlights Klondike’s com-

Jalapeño Goat Cheese Are you ready for a heat wave? Montchevré, America’s leading goat cheese manufacturer is cranking up the heat on its traditional fresh goat cheese with its new Jalapeño Goat Cheese. Montchevré is heating things up for consumers who love spicy flavors and can use a little spice in their daily meals. M o n t c h e v r é ’s Jalapeño Goat Cheese has a hot and spicy kick with a bigbang flavor! Striking a perfect balance between fresh and creamy goat cheese with the 32

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Sacha Inchi Oil a Superfood Culinary Oil hot bite of Jalapeño peppers, this cheese is hot but easy to eat. Kick back and enjoy this festive and fiery cheese on its own or spread on a burger, tacos, or salad. This is the perfect ingredient to enjoy with an ice cold beer! Jalapeño goat cheese is starting to appear on shelves across the nation now, so get ready for the next big heat wave. It’s coming in hot!

eSutras Naturals Extra Virgin Sacha Inchi Oil is the company’s newest superfood culinary oil to hit the marketplace. Consumers are trying to eat healthier these days, with vegan, gluten-free and raw diets being extremely popular. Sacha Inchi Oil fits perfectly into all these categories, which your healthconscious customers will love! This oil also has one of the highest Omega-3-6-9 concentrations of any food on Earth. Grown without pesticides or chemicals in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, this star among superfoods is more than just an

excellent source of essential fatty acids, proteins and amino acids. It’s sustainably harvested, raw and cold pressed in small batches, which makes it very stable, meaning it has a longer selflife. eSutras Naturals Extra Virgin Sacha Inchi Oil is available to purchase in small case sizes. To place an order with eSutras Naturals, email help@ esutras.com or, to place an order over the phone, call 773.583.4850.

President of Guggisberg Cheese Ruminates on Win An interview with Richard Guggisberg, President of Guggisberg Cheese TCG: To whom/what do you contribute your United States grand champion win? RG: We are located in the beautiful hills of Holmes County, Ohio, where we are blessed with a great quality milk supply. The farms located on these green pastures provide us with milk that has unique flavor, much like those of the pastures in the Alps.

From the farmers who provide us with this milk to our haulers, to the cheesemakers, and every employee in every department, each person contributes, in their own way, to this win. We have over 80 years of experience making Swiss cheeses and an incredible team dedicated to providing superior quality. It all started with my father, Alfred, who as a young boy learned the art in the Swiss Alps, and I have the honor of carrying on his high standards of quality. It all comes down to experience, perseverance,

Cello Whisps from Arthur Schuman Cello Whisps are the perfect snack food, made from just one ingredient, 100 percent pure Parmesan cheese. Consumers can’t get enough of Whisps, made with Cello’s award-winning Copper Kettle Parmesan cheese baked into flavorful, airy, crispy — whispy! — bites. Using Cello’s award-winning Copper Kettle Parmesan

cheese aged 14 months, these wholesome crisps are a new spin on snacking. Whisps are gluten and wheat free and an excellent source of protein and calcium with no artificial colors or flavors, no preservatives and no added sugar. Cello Whisps are not only a great snack; they also pair perfectly with soups, salads, pasta

dedicated employees and milk supply. TCG: What all goes into the judging process? How do they decide which is best?

would like to add about the win? What are your plans for 2016?

TCG: Is there anything else you

RG: It truly was a great honor to be judged as the best by our peers from around the country, especially the Wisconsin cheesemakers. Wisconsin is truly an area of great cheesemaking tradition and experience. We are presently renovating, modernizing and expanding the Swiss cheese production line. In addition, we have some exciting new products that we adding to our line. We are always striving to innovate and keep up with an ever-changing industry while maintaining the exceptional standards of quality we are known for.

and more. Turn an everyday meal into an unforgettable experience by adding Whisps. Create the perfect lastminute, elegant appetizer, add as a crunchy surprise to a sandwich or use as a healthy replacement for croutons on a

salad. The ideas are endless. C o n sumers are in love with C e l l o Whisps. Be sure to stock this hot new item. For more information, call Arthur Schuman Inc. at 973.227.0030 or visit www.arthurschuman.com.

RG: Swiss cheese is generally regarded as the most difficult cheese to make. As with all cheeses, it is graded on the basis of flavor, texture, and general appearance. However, with Swiss cheese, the holes, or “eyes,” have to be perfect as well. The judges are highly trained and experienced and come from all areas of cheesemaking.

The Cheese Guide

the mayonnaise manufacturer, the company developed what CEO Mario Fortunato calls “a real tasty and flavorful aioli (because we added truffles, it became an aioli).” The new Wild Forest Black Truffle Aioli (mayo) Spread is made from the best ingredients for a smooth, rustic spread that’s aromatic with the scent of truffle. This is wonderful as a

spread on sandwiches, use with dips, add to mashed potatoes or use anywhere you would use a mayonnaise spread. “We take pride in using the finest all natural ingredients, cage free and pasture raised eggs, nonGMO oils,” Fortunato says. “We then add our black truffles into the spread along with our

well-loved truffle olive oil. Try it! You will never go back regular mayonnaise again!” Wild Forest Black Truffle Aioli is available in cases of six 4ounce packs. Visit the website at www.wildforestproducts.com to see all of Wild Forest Products’ items, or call 855.645.7772 for more information.

and cheese tray for something healthy, easy and delicious is the smart decision for any health-conscious consumer. Because of its high protein and fiber content, Wild Garden Hummus is lower in calories, but higher in nutrition than most hummus. It’s a great-tasting snack that offers a tasty spin on any meal. With no preservatives

or added ingredients, Wild Garden is the only shelfs t a b l e hummus on the market. So not only is eating on the go healthy and easy for the entire family, it’s also convenient for parties where food may be sitting out for long periods of time—no refrigeration needed.

From appetizer platters and antipasto to lunches and dinner for an entire family, Wild Garden Hummus is a versatile s u p e r- f o o d that consumers crave. For more information, contact Mark Smith at 708.298.3810 or mdsmith@ziyad.com.

tion. The taste is classically, traditionally, Formaggio Brand, and that means awardwinning flavor and texture, so the pre-sliced aspect just makes this Formaggio Brand offering just that much better. A new flavor for Formaggio’s

meat and cheese roll line is Applewood Smoked Bacon. Formaggio has taken its cheesesmoking skills and applied them to a high quality prosciutto wrapped around a mattress of fresh mozzarella and the results – truly stunning.

Wild Forest Black Trufﬂe Aioli Wild Forest Products has done it again with a new version of a truffle mayonnaise. Learning from a white truffle mayo in the past that was good but not great, the company has come up with a much better version. This time around, Wild Forest Products got together with a well-known manufacturer of mayonnaise and picked their brains. Working together with

Wild Garden Hummus Works with Cheese Cheese and fruit. Cheese and crackers. Cheese and…hummus? It may not be the first combination you think of—but Wild Garden Hummus is the perfect flavor-packed spread to pair with a variety of meats, cheeses and crackers. Substituting the traditional ranch or onion dip on a veggie

Formaggio Meat and Cheese Rolls Now Pre-Sliced Formaggio Brand’s meat and cheese rolls are now pre-sliced! This is a time-saver and creates a much more beautiful serving. Imagine just opening the package and shuffling onto a pizza crust the fresh mozzarella and pepperoni medallions without so much as touching a knife or cutting board. Couldn’t be easier.

And in terms of appearance, slicing the pepperoni and cheese roll wasn’t ever really an issue and the soppressata and cheese and chorizo and cheese flavors were never a problem either. But the prosciutto and cheese roll could get a little messy when slicing because of the nature of the meat. The appearance, now, is perfec-

Pumpkin Goat Cheese Montchevré, America’s leading goat cheese manufacturer, is jumping into fall with one of its newest fresh goat cheese flavors: Pumpkin. Pumpkin has become the epitome of fall and is often at the center of holiday recipes, so this sweet treat is sure be a hit. The delectable combination of fresh and creamy goat cheese blended with the sweet, earthy and rich pumpkin is reminiscent of a crisp 34

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and beautiful fall day. Feature this treat at the center of your Holiday cheese board, bake into a pumpkin cheesecake, or sprinkle onto your favorite fall salad and your guests will be in cheese heaven! Pumpkin goat cheese is starting to appear on shelves across the nation now. Don’t miss out on this original goat cheese flavor that is bound to spread a little more joy this holiday.

Fall River Wild Rice: New Ways with America’s Native Grain Interest in plants and grains is soaring as shoppers look for new ways to eat healthy. High in protein and fiber, nutty and with a striking visual appeal, wild rice is one of the healthiest grains available. It was a staple food of several Native American tribes, who called it “manoomin” or “precious grain.” Fall River Wild Rice brings this culinary gem to your store shelf. This naturally cultivated wild rice is great in salads, soups and stirfries. However, it also works well in mixes for pancakes and muffins and even in chocolate and desserts. Fall River’s Fully Cooked Wild Rice is high-protein

goodness in seconds. The only cereal grain native to North America, wild rice is not even a rice at all. It is the seed of Zizania plustris, a tall, blooming water grass that prospers in the Great Lakes region, as well as in the fruitful valleys in the shadows of the Sierra Nevadas and the Rockies. Fall River Wild Rice is a small grower-owned cooperative in the Fall River Valley, a rural mountain valley nestled between the Cascade and Sierra Nevada ranges. For more information, call 800.626.4366 or visit www.fall riverwildrice.com.

First Truly Raw Cheddar Cheese from Organic Pastures Truly Raw Cheddar Cheese from Organic Pastures is the perfect solution for the busy, health-conscious consumer who needs convenience but doesn’t want to sacrifice a commitment to healthy eating habits. Organic Pastures is dedicated to whole food nutrition. Ingredient

lists are short and simple. The Truly Raw Shredded Cheddar Cheese is made from the highest-quality Grade A, organic, raw whole milk from cows grazing on organic green pastures 365 days a year. All products are certified USDA organic, kosher, and animal humane.

Odyssey Traditional Feta in Brine Klondike Cheese Co.’s Traditional 8-ounce chunk in brine is an authentic way to consume feta in the family line-up of Odyssey® Feta Cheeses. With the exceptional mouth-feel you get from the cheese packaged in a brine solution, you can be guaranteed the highest quality taste and great flavor. Having the availability of the smaller pack size allows house-

holds to have the same indulgence experience at home as they would in their favorite restaurant, using Odyssey Traditional Feta in Brine to create their signature dishes. You can savor the flavor longer when the feta is submerged in the brine solution. If you haven’t tasted Feta in Brine, you’ll no doubt be impressed by its freshness, authenticity and traditional

Cheddar Sriracha from Country Connection Cheese Company Flavored cheese is a $1.5 billion market in the US, according to the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, and its growth outpaces that of non-flavored cheese. Country Connection’s Sriracha Cheddar puts the deli’s cheese case in the heart of this market. Country Connection Cheese Company’s award-winning

Sriracha Cheddar meets the growing demand for sriracha flavoring. Indeed, this cheddar, made by one of Wisconsin’s Master Cheesemakers in the Driftless Hills of southwestern Wisconsin, is a profitable and visually appealing addition to any cheese case. The heat of sriracha is tem-

Premium Swiss Guggisberg Cheese Guggisberg Cheese, famous for being home of the Original Baby Swiss, is nestled among the lush, green pastures of Ohio’s Amish Country. Deeply rooted in authentic Swiss culture, tradition, and experience, this award-winning cheese is unlike any other. Founded by Swiss immigrant Alfred Guggisberg and now operated by his son

Richard, Guggisberg Cheese prides itself on superior standards of quality, which is represented by recent international and national awards. Guggisberg’s 2015 United States Grand Champion Premium Swiss cheese has a unique blend of mild, slightly nutty flavors that have been the Guggisberg tradition from the very

Partners Artisan Hors D’Oeuvre Crackers Since 1992, Partners, A Tasteful Choice Company, has been making wholesome and delicious crackers made exclusively with high quality ingredients. One of the company’s top selling lines is Partners Artisan Hors D’Oeuvre Crackers. Approximately 2 inches by 3 inches in size, these crackers are excellent for pairing with toppings and spreads and are

often used to create elegant party platters. Partners Artisan Hors D’Oeuvre Crackers are packaged in cellophane trays in approximately 5-ounce cartons, six cartons per case. The cartons feature two front-facing sides, allowing for both vertical or horizontal display. They are available in a variety of flavors, including

This fourth-generation family farm is committed to the highest standards and quality. Artisan cheesemakers skillfully craft cheese in small batches, taking care never to heat above 102 degrees to maintain the milk’s nutritional integrity. By keeping the cheese below

102 degrees, all the amazing beneficial bacteria, enzymes and proteins are preserved, making Organic Pastures’ Truly Raw Cheddar Cheese an easy and healthful addition to your customersv carts. For more information about Organic Pastures Dairy, visit www.organicpastures.com.

flavor. Brine-packed Feta also offers a longer shelf life after opening, adding value to the purchase. Klondike has mastered the craft of Greek-style feta for more than 25 years, with accolades to prove it: Odyssey feta is a first-place contest winner at the World Championship Cheese Contest winner

and the American Cheese Society competition. It has also received honors from the Wisconsin State Fair. For more information about Klondike Cheese and Odyssey, including detailed information about retail and food service bulk products, visit www.klondikecheese.com.

pered by the cooling effect of the dairy, such that its flavor is savored, and consumers return to it time and again. Excellent melted on a burger, a favorite on the cheese board, it is the life of the party. Since its launch earlier in 2015, Country Connection’s Sriracha Cheddar reorders have steadily grown.

Country Connection Cheese Company was established in 1973 and offers flavored, smoked and classic cheese varieties. Sriracha Cheddar is available in 5-pound loaves or ½-pound prepacks. For more information visit www.countryconnectioncheese .com or call 312.656.0463.

beginning. Judged as the number one cheese in America, it is simply the best of the best. In addition to Premium Swiss and Baby Swiss, Guggisberg’s three factories produce a wide variety of cheeses, including award-winning Colby, Marble, Pepper

Jack, Thunder Jack, Lacerne, F a r m e r ’s Cheese, and Amish Butter C h e e s e . Recognized across the country as the best, Guggisberg and quality go hand-in-hand.

customer favorites Roasted Garlic & Rosemary, Olive Oil & Sea Salt, and the most recent addition, Everything & More. As with all Partners products, these hearty crackers are non-GMO, certified kosher and feature high quality ingredients such as freshly peeled garlic roasted in house at Partners. For more information about

Partners, A Ta s t e f u l Choice Comp a n y, v i s i t Winter Fancy Food Booth #3508, call 800.632.7477 or email service@partnerscrackers.com. You may also find PARTNERS at www.partnerscrackers.com, or on Facebook at facebook.com/partnerscrackers. The Cheese Guide