Grows up: farmstead, artisan and specialty cheesemaker are developing real markets, upgrading facilities and even partnering with the big boys

Dairy Foods, March, 2006 by David Phillips

The group was established way back in 1982 when most specialty cheese sold in the United States came from France, Great Britain, or Spain. Now there are state milk marketing organizations and cheesemaker guilds in Vermont, Wisconsin and California that promote each state's artisan cheesemaking community.

Last year Whole Foods Markets celebrated its 25th anniversary and Cypress Grove was one of a handful of vendors asked to create special edition products to mark the occasion.

"We came up with Fog Lights, which is something I'm really proud of," Keehn said. "It's an 8-oz. wheel so the retailer can just put it out for consumers to grab rather than having to cut it. And it's a nice size for a couple to share with a bottle of wine over the course of a night or two."

Blue cheese, too

Head up the coast from Arcata, and it doesn't take long to reach Rogue River Creamery, Central Point, Ore. Rogue River is an artisan cheese maker that has a long history and a shared parentage with Vella Cheese in Sonoma, Calif.

David Gremmels and Cary Bryant bought the Rogue Creamery from the Vella Family in 2002 and have been making artisan blue and Cheddar cheeses with locally procured milk since--and winning awards and accolades. Its sales have doubled just about every year and it is now doing about $3 million a year.

In January, Rogue River announced that it would purchase a 22,000 sq ft storage facility from which it had been leasing space. The company will spend more than $1 million for the property to help meet the demand for its cheeses like Oregonzola and Crater Lake Blue.

"The demand is driving the growth for all of our businesses and we at Rogue River certainly have felt it this year," Gremmels says. "We are over allocated and we didn't have enough product to meet demand. That's been the case for three years."

Is there a concern that the efforts to boost supply will rob artisan cheesemakers of their charm, and impact the quality of the product? Keehn thinks there is no reason that should happen.

"It all depends on your goals, your mission and your vision, and we hold those things very dear," she says. "Yes we can now afford to mechanize putting a label on a piece of cheese, where a year ago they all went on by hand. But that doesn't add any value to the cheese itself. We still turn the cheese by hand and still crinkle the ash on the cheese by hand, but now instead of having one cooler we have six."

But Gremmels, who serves on the ACS board of directors, says many of the cheesemaking members are faced with similar growth issues, and he feels it's something they need to look at together.

"It's time that we start reaching out to other industries to find out what they have done right and where some of them have failed," he says.

Gremmels mentions Rogue Ales, a Newport, Ore.,-based craft brewer with more than 20 years under its belt. The two Rogues have collaborated on some beer-infused cheeses.

"There are so many parallels between the two industries," he says. "Certainly beer is 15 years ahead of the artisan specialty cheese industry."