Designer Cheese - Brief Article

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, Jan, 2000 by Jane Bennett Clark

FOOD | The price may be hard to swallow, but the INTENSE FLAVOR is attracting plenty of shoppers.

RECIPE FOR a great meal: Unwrap one piece of cheese, break out one loaf of bread, open one bottle of wine. Serve. Of course, it helps if the cheese isn't a brick of Velveeta, but rather has been aged in a cave and is whimsically named Humboldt Fog or Wabash Cannonball.

"Artisan" or "specialty" cheeses, often made from goat's milk or sheep's milk, are the hottest wedge of the industry. Though that wedge is still a tiny fraction of a multibillion-dollar industry, consumption grew 8%, versus 1.5% for all cheeses in 1996, the latest year for which data is available.

Fueled by high-end chefs and gourmet food stores, the trend is part of

"a resurgence of eating less but eating better," says Judith Schad of Capriole, which makes artisan goat cheese (from a herd that numbers about 250) in Greenville, Ind.

So what do you pay for a product that was aged in brandied chestnut leaves or dusted with peppermint flakes and wrapped in nettles? At least $10 to $14 a pound for an aged goat cheese, says Laura Welch of the American Cheese Society, which represents specialty cheesemakers. Cheese made from cow's milk generally costs less, says Stacy Kinsley of Dan Carter Inc., which markets the specialty products.

At those prices, you'll get a dense product with a high content of solids and "intense flavor," says Mary Falk of LoveTree Farmstead Cheese, in Grantsburg, Wis., which makes

sheep's-milk products that sell for about $16 a pound. For a list of artisan cheesemakers, you can contact the American Cheese Society at 414-728-4458, or go to www.cheesesociety.org.