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December 2022

Spotlight on Jasper Hill Farm

If you’re a lover of Vermont artisan cheese, then you’re likely no stranger to the producer basking in the glow of this week’s Member Deals Spotlight — Jasper Hill Farm. And we think you’ll be thrilled to hear that from December 29th – January 4th, Co-op member-owners can enjoy a 20% discount on their full lineup of award-winning local cheeses – just in time to put together a crowd-pleasing New Year’s Eve cheese board! Read on to learn more about the brothers behind this epic operation, their innovative approach to cheesemaking, and the legendary underground cellars where they age cheeses to ripe perfection:

 

Deep in the heart of the dairy country of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom is a dairy farm like no other. A glimpse of the main barn, painted deep-space blue with cows in astronaut attire and a moon made of cheese, provides the first hint that you’ve landed somewhere unique. Brothers Andy and Mateo, along with their wives, Victoria and Angie, knew they needed to do something different when they purchased this derelict dairy farm in 1998 — the same year that one-third of the neighboring dairy farms in the community sold their cows under intense financial pressures. Small-scale farms like this were becoming more difficult to keep up and running – a 50-cow farm like theirs would have to compete with average herd sizes of about 900 cows out west, as all of that milk is priced by the same commodity market. But the brothers were eager to find meaningful work in the place that they loved and wanted to demonstrate the ability to make a good living milking 45 grass-fed Ayrshire cows on a rocky hillside in Vermont. 

Brothers Andy & Mateo Kehler. Image by Colin Clark.

Over the next 5 years, they worked hard to patch up the barn, build up their herd, improve their pastures, construct a creamery, and carve out a cave that would provide the ideal conditions for aging European-style natural rind cheeses. By 2003, they were ready to sell their very first cheeses and quickly amassed a strong following in the burgeoning American artisan cheese market. An interesting call from neighboring Cabot Creamery would change the course of their plans and set them down a path that involved creating opportunities for other local cheesemakers to get their product to peak potential. Like most cheesemakers, Cabot lacked a space dedicated to cultivating natural rinds. In fact, their warehouses were focused on keeping surface mold away from cheese. The Kehlers were nearby, hungry to grow their business, and most importantly, had a temperature and humidity-controlled space designed to grow natural rinds. The result was Cabot Clothbound Cheddar and the awards and accolades soon followed, as one of the first batches took home Best of Show at the 2006 American Cheese Society Conference.  Andy & Mateo recognized the potential in these kinds of collaborations and drew up plans for an expanded aging facility beneath one of the pastures of Jasper Hill Farm.

The Cellars at Jasper Hill

Two years later, they formally opened the Cellars at Jasper Hill —  a 22,000-square-foot aging facility featuring seven vaults specifically calibrated for various cheese types. This allowed them to partner with a network of other local cheesemakers and reduce the barriers to entry for those interested in value-added production. According to their website, “ripening work for natural-rind cheeses takes up more than 70% of the labor for a batch of cheese, over its lifetime. By pooling these efforts, farmstead producers could spend more time focusing on the true drivers of cheese quality: milk production and cheesemaking. Instead of sending hundreds of small boxes through the post, refrigerated trucks now pick up pallets of cheese destined for regional and national distributors. The Cellars is now the final stop for cheeses coming from six different creameries. Its mission is to be the standard-bearer for quality and innovation in the artisan cheese industry.”

The award-winning Harbison. Image by Bob Montgomery

Andy & Mateo have a knack for distilling the local landscape into their cheeses. They took this approach to new heights in 2013 when they opened a state-of-the-art laboratory on their farm, complete with a staff of food microbiology experts. The idea for this new endeavor was sparked by their partnership with Harvard scientist Dr. Rachel Dutton in 2010, who was using cheese as a model to research how small microbial communities interact. One of the profound discoveries of Dr. Dutton’s work was the notion that the environment (cows, cheese caves, pastures) and methods (washing, salting, managing acidity) were as important to the development of cheese rinds, if not more so, than the ingredients. Microbes, including yeast and bacteria, are critical partners in the cheesemaking process, turning milk into solids, and those solids into cheeses with distinctive aromas, flavors, and textures. American cheesemakers have very limited options when sourcing the cultures for their cheeses, as there are only three domestic suppliers of these critical microbes, all of which are multinational chemical corporations, including DuPont and Cargill. This significantly limits the number of available cultures and stifles the individualism that artisanal cheesemakers crave.

The happy grass-fed cows of Jasper Hill Farm. Image by Blake Noyes.

With strong science to support Dr. Dutton’s findings, a new lab, and a team of microbiologists lending their expertise, Jasper Hill Farm has been able to experiment with creating their own microbial cultures, which are sourced directly from the milk produced by the cows on their farm. They have also found that their raw milk cheeses, like Winnimere, contain all of the microbes needed to produce a fantastic cheese, thus avoiding the need to add microbial cultures. While this all may sound very high-tech for something as rudimentary farmstead cheese, Andy and Mateo are quick to point out that a cheese will never be better than the milk that it’s made from, you can’t make good milk without healthy animals, and you can’t have healthy animals without a healthy landscape filled with nutrient-dense forage. The microbial ecology of raw milk is the sum of these practices on a farm.

The proof of success lies in the supreme quality of the cheeses coming out of the Cellars at Jasper Hill. Their cheeses have garnered a long list of awards including ‘Best American Cheese’ at the World Cheese Awards and ‘Best in Show’ at the American Cheese Society for Harbison; an American Cheese Society ‘Best in Class’ for Bayley Hazen Blue, and two Top 20 nods at the 2020 World Championship Cheese Contest for Highlander and Lait Bloomer. Bayley Hazen Blue was even featured in a White House dinner when the Obamas held a State Dinner in honor of the French President. If you’re worried it might all be going to their heads, a quick trip to their YouTube channel will reassure you that they’re not taking themselves too seriously. The documentation of a recent escape attempt by a wheel of Cabot Clothbound will also be sure to leave a smile on your face, the music video parodies are a must-see, and you won’t want to miss this clip of their Bayley Hazen Blue being shot into Earth’s outer atmosphere with the help of a weather balloon, an HD camera, and GPS tracking software.  The cheese was successfully lofted 100,000 feet up and then retrieved where it parachuted down a couple of towns to the west of the Greensboro, VT launch site. Talk about stellar cheese!!

The Bayley Hazen Blue Moon launch. Image by Ryan Nolan.

 

Jasper Hill Farm from The Editorium on Vimeo.

Business of the Month: Middlebury Fitness

Do your New Year’s resolutions involve new fitness goals? We invite you to check out this month’s featured Co-op Connection Business — Middlebury Fitness! Flash your Co-op member-owner card and you’ll receive 50% off the enrollment fee and your first class or workout is FREE! Read on to learn more about what this community wellness center has to offer:

 

 

Middlebury Fitness is a community health and wellness center founded in 1997 that puts its members’ needs first. Their facility features a wide variety of the most current strength and cardio equipment by the leading brands in the industry. Is group fitness your thing? They offer a variety of live and remote programs and group fitness classes to meet the diverse and ever-changing needs of their member base, ranging from ages 13 to 93. Click here for their class calendar and descriptions. Other services and amenities include personal training, sport-specific athletic performance training, nutrition consultations with Registered Dietician Amy Rice of Champlain Nutrition Solutions, and more!

The crew at Middlebury Fitness is incredibly proud to be so active in this great community and annually receives recognition and awards for various initiatives. For the past four consecutive years, they have received the United Way of Addison County’s “Partner Award” for an annual event that has raised $60,000 for our local friends and families in need since 2014. Wow!! They were also the 2018 recipients of the prestigious BOB (Best of Business) award in the Health Club category by Vermont Business Magazine. 

At Middlebury Fitness they understand that you have options when it comes to your health and fitness needs. They aim to meet and exceed their members’ expectations every day and believe they have some of the most attentive, caring, professional, and knowledgeable instructors, personal trainers, and staff you will find. Their ultimate goal at Midd Fit is to ensure that each of their members achieves their personal fitness goals while experiencing exceptional customer service in a supportive atmosphere of fun and camaraderie.

If you are a current member, they’d like to extend a sincere THANK YOU for being a part of the Midd Fit family! If you are not yet a member, please visit and let Middlebury Fitness guide you through your fitness journey today! And don’t forget to mention that you’re a Co-op member-owner!

Between Two Ends

“98% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than animal milk mozzarella!” boasts the advertisements for a new variety of vegan cheese I was recently excited to try. A product that is energy efficient, meets my dietary needs (gluten and dairy free), and tastes delicious? A win-win situation! But as I add it to my basket, I always feel conflicted. This cashew-based cheese is certainly not local. What is the true environmental and social impact of this product that is not boasted on the label? 

So what is a Co-op shopper to do? The truth is, there is no one way to eat. We all have to make informed compromises every time we fill our shopping carts. 

Sometimes I feel like there’s nothing left to eat that doesn’t conflict with at least one of my environmental, social, or dietary criteria. I recognize that statement isn’t true–choosing my foods through these criteria is something I’m able to do because I have the privilege of food security. And yet still, as a conscious consumer who also has dietary restrictions, I am often perplexed by the balancing act of feeding my family. The paradox of choice–a malady of the privileged–sneaks into my consciousness each time I grocery shop. 

People have been telling me how to eat for most of my life. Since I was diagnosed with a digestive disease at the age of 10, I’ve had people tell me everything from: “What you eat has no impact on your condition,” to people telling me to eat a highly limited diet. At different points, I’ve been told not to eat: dairy, gluten, all grains, sugar, peanuts, chocolate, onions, garlic, all raw vegetables, tropical fruit, and more. I’ve also had people tell me I could cure my condition without western medicine if I simply ate: beans at every meal and mostly cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and cabbage. Or if I just ate a lot of coconut oil. The list goes on. It’s exhausting. 

But my choices about what I eat go beyond myself. I believe that grocery shopping can be a radical act. I can use my dollars to support businesses–such as our Co-op–that make a difference in the world as a mission-based retail organization. 

I am grateful that the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op strives to meet a variety of people’s needs, wants, and perceptions of the world. The Co-op’s job is to provide a range of foods that meet the organization’s buying criteria, and also serve the Co-op’s Mission and Ends statement. Within that framework, the rest is up to us as shoppers to make our informed compromises–all of which are unique from other shoppers. 

To be honest, I’ve continued to buy the vegan cheese even though in some ways it represents a personal tension for me, and a tension between two of the Co-op’s Ends: “vibrant local economy” and “environmentally sustainable and energy efficient practices.” I’m curious: how do you, as member-owners, navigate this tightrope? Is there one End that resonates with you more deeply than another and drives your decisions? I’d love to know: amanda@middlebury.coop

Amanda Warren is our Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op Board President

Spotlight on Jasper Hill Farm

If you’re a lover of Vermont artisan cheese, then you’re likely no stranger to the producer basking in the glow of this week’s Member Deals Spotlight — Jasper Hill Farm. And we think you’ll be thrilled to hear that from December 29th – January 4th, Co-op member-owners can enjoy a 20% discount on their full lineup of award-winning local cheeses – just in time to put together a crowd-pleasing New Year’s Eve cheese board! Read on to learn more about the brothers behind this epic operation, their innovative approach to cheesemaking, and the legendary underground cellars where they age cheeses to ripe perfection:

 

Deep in the heart of the dairy country of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom is a dairy farm like no other. A glimpse of the main barn, painted deep-space blue with cows in astronaut attire and a moon made of cheese, provides the first hint that you’ve landed somewhere unique. Brothers Andy and Mateo, along with their wives, Victoria and Angie, knew they needed to do something different when they purchased this derelict dairy farm in 1998 — the same year that one-third of the neighboring dairy farms in the community sold their cows under intense financial pressures. Small-scale farms like this were becoming more difficult to keep up and running – a 50-cow farm like theirs would have to compete with average herd sizes of about 900 cows out west, as all of that milk is priced by the same commodity market. But the brothers were eager to find meaningful work in the place that they loved and wanted to demonstrate the ability to make a good living milking 45 grass-fed Ayrshire cows on a rocky hillside in Vermont. 

Brothers Andy & Mateo Kehler. Image by Colin Clark.

Over the next 5 years, they worked hard to patch up the barn, build up their herd, improve their pastures, construct a creamery, and carve out a cave that would provide the ideal conditions for aging European-style natural rind cheeses. By 2003, they were ready to sell their very first cheeses and quickly amassed a strong following in the burgeoning American artisan cheese market. An interesting call from neighboring Cabot Creamery would change the course of their plans and set them down a path that involved creating opportunities for other local cheesemakers to get their product to peak potential. Like most cheesemakers, Cabot lacked a space dedicated to cultivating natural rinds. In fact, their warehouses were focused on keeping surface mold away from cheese. The Kehlers were nearby, hungry to grow their business, and most importantly, had a temperature and humidity-controlled space designed to grow natural rinds. The result was Cabot Clothbound Cheddar and the awards and accolades soon followed, as one of the first batches took home Best of Show at the 2006 American Cheese Society Conference.  Andy & Mateo recognized the potential in these kinds of collaborations and drew up plans for an expanded aging facility beneath one of the pastures of Jasper Hill Farm.

The Cellars at Jasper Hill

Two years later, they formally opened the Cellars at Jasper Hill —  a 22,000-square-foot aging facility featuring seven vaults specifically calibrated for various cheese types. This allowed them to partner with a network of other local cheesemakers and reduce the barriers to entry for those interested in value-added production. According to their website, “ripening work for natural-rind cheeses takes up more than 70% of the labor for a batch of cheese, over its lifetime. By pooling these efforts, farmstead producers could spend more time focusing on the true drivers of cheese quality: milk production and cheesemaking. Instead of sending hundreds of small boxes through the post, refrigerated trucks now pick up pallets of cheese destined for regional and national distributors. The Cellars is now the final stop for cheeses coming from six different creameries. Its mission is to be the standard-bearer for quality and innovation in the artisan cheese industry.”

The award-winning Harbison. Image by Bob Montgomery

Andy & Mateo have a knack for distilling the local landscape into their cheeses. They took this approach to new heights in 2013 when they opened a state-of-the-art laboratory on their farm, complete with a staff of food microbiology experts. The idea for this new endeavor was sparked by their partnership with Harvard scientist Dr. Rachel Dutton in 2010, who was using cheese as a model to research how small microbial communities interact. One of the profound discoveries of Dr. Dutton’s work was the notion that the environment (cows, cheese caves, pastures) and methods (washing, salting, managing acidity) were as important to the development of cheese rinds, if not more so, than the ingredients. Microbes, including yeast and bacteria, are critical partners in the cheesemaking process, turning milk into solids, and those solids into cheeses with distinctive aromas, flavors, and textures. American cheesemakers have very limited options when sourcing the cultures for their cheeses, as there are only three domestic suppliers of these critical microbes, all of which are multinational chemical corporations, including DuPont and Cargill. This significantly limits the number of available cultures and stifles the individualism that artisanal cheesemakers crave.

The happy grass-fed cows of Jasper Hill Farm. Image by Blake Noyes.

With strong science to support Dr. Dutton’s findings, a new lab, and a team of microbiologists lending their expertise, Jasper Hill Farm has been able to experiment with creating their own microbial cultures, which are sourced directly from the milk produced by the cows on their farm. They have also found that their raw milk cheeses, like Winnimere, contain all of the microbes needed to produce a fantastic cheese, thus avoiding the need to add microbial cultures. While this all may sound very high-tech for something as rudimentary farmstead cheese, Andy and Mateo are quick to point out that a cheese will never be better than the milk that it’s made from, you can’t make good milk without healthy animals, and you can’t have healthy animals without a healthy landscape filled with nutrient-dense forage. The microbial ecology of raw milk is the sum of these practices on a farm.

The proof of success lies in the supreme quality of the cheeses coming out of the Cellars at Jasper Hill. Their cheeses have garnered a long list of awards including ‘Best American Cheese’ at the World Cheese Awards and ‘Best in Show’ at the American Cheese Society for Harbison; an American Cheese Society ‘Best in Class’ for Bayley Hazen Blue, and two Top 20 nods at the 2020 World Championship Cheese Contest for Highlander and Lait Bloomer. Bayley Hazen Blue was even featured in a White House dinner when the Obamas held a State Dinner in honor of the French President. If you’re worried it might all be going to their heads, a quick trip to their YouTube channel will reassure you that they’re not taking themselves too seriously. The documentation of a recent escape attempt by a wheel of Cabot Clothbound will also be sure to leave a smile on your face, the music video parodies are a must-see, and you won’t want to miss this clip of their Bayley Hazen Blue being shot into Earth’s outer atmosphere with the help of a weather balloon, an HD camera, and GPS tracking software.  The cheese was successfully lofted 100,000 feet up and then retrieved where it parachuted down a couple of towns to the west of the Greensboro, VT launch site. Talk about stellar cheese!!

The Bayley Hazen Blue Moon launch. Image by Ryan Nolan.

 

Jasper Hill Farm from The Editorium on Vimeo.

Spotlight on Ursa Major

The holiday season is in full swing and we’re shining a bright Member Deals Spotlight on a local body care company that offers a fabulous lineup of gender-neutral products that make great last-minute gifts for the natural skincare enthusiasts on your list! All Ursa Major products are 20% off for member-owners from December 22nd – 28th. Read on to learn more about this forest-infused, adventure-inspired body care company and the folks behind the brand who remain steadfastly committed to a fresh take on skincare:

 

Ursa Major (the ‘Great Bear’ in Latin) is the largest visible constellation in the northern sky and has long been used to find True North. To the folks at Ursa Major skincare, it’s a powerful reminder to follow your inner compass and forge your own path in life. It was in this spirit that founders Emily Doyle and Oliver Sweatman started their “supernatural” skincare brand a decade ago after leaving New York City for the pastoral hills of Waterbury, Vermont. Inspired by adventurous days on the trail, they created Ursa Major to help others – no matter where they live – get that “healthy mountain glow”. Pure, powerful, and refreshing, their forest-infused formulas harness nature’s most effective ingredients to help you achieve clear, healthy skin.

Ursa Major founders Emily Doyle and Oliver Sweatman

Their website reminds us that they’re not some “huge, soulless company churning out cost-optimized products to maximize their bottom line”. Rather, they pursue this path because they’re obsessive about the craft of making stellar natural skin and body care products and will accept nothing less. In keeping with this ethos, they also avoid the typical marketing-driven launch timelines, only launching a product once it checks all the boxes, no matter how long it takes. 

They also offer a fresh take on the tired skin care binary, instead offering gender-neutral skin care products in recognition that skin is skin. Whether you want a fantastic sulfate-free face cleanser, a natural deodorant that you can really count on, or a face wipe to reboot skin on the fly, they’ve got you covered.

When you purchase their products, you can feel confident that they’ll contain powerful, active ingredients with refreshing natural aromas and lightweight textures. What you will not find are harsh additives such as petrochemicals, SLS, SLES, parabens, synthetic fragrances, colors, silicones, or PEGs. 

Sustainability

As a Certified B-Corp, Ursa Major takes their commitment to people and planet seriously. 

  • All of their products use only healthy ingredients keeping your skincare routine and our waterways clean.
  • All full-time employees have stock in the company. Ursa Major believes this enables and inspires a more meaningful relationship with their work.
  • When not working from home, their company headquarters are 100% carbon-neutral.
  • All Ursa Major employees participate in a volunteer program aimed at giving back to their community and surroundings. Their goal is to dedicate 20 hours per employee each year.
  • Over half of the Ursa Major leadership team identify as female.

They’re also committed to smart, sustainable packaging and are constantly evaluating and looking for ways to optimize packaging materials and production methods. Whenever possible, they max out on post-consumer recycled content and use renewable energy to manufacture and source from within the United States to lower their carbon footprint. Many of their products are offered in recyclable glass, they recently transitioned all 8 fl oz bottles to at least 50% PCR content, moved to FSC-certified paper stock for the majority of their secondary packaging, and they produce over 90% of their cartons at a carbon-neutral facility with 100% renewable energy.

They are proud to be one of the first Plastic Negative clean skincare brands. In partnership with rePurpose Global, they remove two plastic bottles from the environment for every bottle they sell.

If you’d like to check out their full B-Corp Impact Report, click here. 

Giving Back 

To help offset their impact, Ursa Major partners with a range of organizations, many of which are located right here in their Vermont community, to protect and preserve the planet while promoting accessibility to the great outdoors. In the past year, their team participated in 11 events and put in 243 hours of community service.  In addition, to date, your Ursa Major purchases have funded projects at the Rokeby Farm, Zeno Farm, Outdoor Afro, the Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, National Park Foundation, Clean the World, Vermont Land Trust, One Tree Planted and Outward Bound for Veterans (and more). 

 

The Ursa Major team volunteering at Rokeby Museum.

 

 

 

Spotlight on Trois Petits Cochons

We’re shining our Co-op Spotlight this week on one of the most awarded specialty food companies in North America-  Trois Petits Cochons!  Les Trois Petits Cochons has produced award-winning, all-natural pâté and charcuterie since 1975 by crafting small, handmade batches using only the finest high-quality ingredients. Their full product line is 20% off for member-owners from December 15th – 21st – just in time to pick up something special for your holiday feast. Read on to learn more about this company that has been producing high-quality, hand-crafted products for nearly 50 years!

Heritage:

Trois Petits Cochons first opened its doors as a small charcuterie in New York City’s Greenwich Village in 1975. Founded by two French chefs who met in Africa while gallivanting across the globe, they decided to open in the bohemian Village, and with the help of an American backer – the third piggy – the shop was born. It has since grown to become the leader in the pâté and charcuterie industry, offering a complete line of artisanal pâtés, mousses, terrines, sausages, saucissons, smoked meats, and other French specialties. Their products have garnered a long list of SOFI awards, earning great respect in the culinary world.

contact-photo

Mission:

 

Three Little Pigs is on a mission to create more enjoyable, everyday moments through casual, well-made charcuterie that is as fun and easy to enjoy as it is high-quality and delicious. They are committed to continuing the tradition of making delicious, authentic, and quality pâté and charcuterie for their customers. 

 

Environmental Commitment:

The team at Les Trois Petits Cochons is committed to sourcing and producing the highest quality all-natural specialty food products in a responsible and sustainable manner.

They believe in:

  1. Transparency – Customers should be able to know where their food comes from and be able to buy from companies committed to sustainable animal husbandry. 
  2. Trust & Relationships  – They believe in partnering with those who can make the best product in the most responsible manner. They personally visit all of their major suppliers, the majority of whom are family farms, to make sure they are upholding the standards set by Les Trois Petits Cochons.
  3. Local – Les Trois Petits Cochons always begins their search locally. Many of their suppliers come from within 100 miles of their production facilities, but sometimes to find that special ingredient they need to go further afield, including to France where they source many of their ingredients like wild mushrooms or espelette pepper.

Be sure to check out the fabulous collection of recipes on their web page!

history_photo

Spotlight on Champlain Valley Creamery

We’re casting our Member Deals Spotlight on a local organic creamery that produces delicious award-winning cheeses just a few short miles from the Co-op. Champlain Valley Creamery uses traditional techniques and small-batch pasteurization to produce their cheese entirely by hand in a net-zero solar-powered facility in Middlebury. Member owners can enjoy a 20% discount on Champlain Valley Creamery’s fantastic lineup of cheeses from December 8th – 14th — just in time for those holiday parties! Read on to learn more about this fabulous local creamery and the people who make it shine:     

 

 

Champlain Valley Creamery was first established in 2003 by founder and owner Carleton Yoder. With a graduate degree in food science and a background in wine and hard cider making, Yoder was eager to run his own food business. With Vermont’s abundance of amazing local milk, small-scale cheesemaking just made sense. Yoder began his adventures in cheesemaking in a facility in Vergennes where he focused on two products: Organic Champlain Triple and Old Fashioned Organic Cream Cheese. Both have been awarded well-deserved honors from the prestigious American Cheese Society.

Carleton Yoder

Over the years, the creamery has continued to grow and expand its offerings, eventually moving into a net-zero solar-powered facility on Middlebury’s Exchange Street in 2012. Yoder and his small crew now produce an expanded lineup of cheeses including Queso Fresco (available in original, house-smoked, and pepper varieties),  Maple Cream Cheese, a pyramid-shaped triple cream with a layer of ash known as Pyramid Scheme, and, most recently, they began importing Italian truffles to produce the Champlain Truffle Triple.

 

The Creamery also made a switch last year to using 100% grass-fed organic milk from the Severy Farm in Cornwall. The milk only travels a few short miles from the farm to the creamery, where the cheesemaking begins within hours of arrival. The use of grass-fed milk results in a richer, creamier cheese that displays subtle seasonal changes reflective of the changing diet of the cows as the seasons progress. It’s truly the terroir of Addison County in each decadent bite of cheese.

Yoder is supported by a small crew that is just as dedicated to the craft as he is. They use traditional techniques and small-batch pasteurization to produce their cheeses entirely by hand.  A recent visit to their facility found the crew in constant motion, measuring, stirring, monitoring temperatures, and generally putting every bit of the day’s fresh batch of milk to good use. The bulk of the cream and whole milk is used to produce the Organic Champlain Triple, Champlain Truffle Triple, and the two varieties of cream cheese. The part-skim milk is then transformed into each of the three varieties of Queso Fresco, and the whey is drained off to create hand-dipped, basket-strained ricotta that is only available to a few select restaurants in the area. The only remaining by-product is a small amount of whey, which is sent to feed the happy pigs at Hinesburg’s Full Moon Farm, resulting in an operation that is hyper-local with very minimal waste. 

According to Yoder, “cheesemaking is hard work but we strive to let the milk, cream, culture, salt, and mold shine through with their amazing flavors.” It’s this minimalist approach and the desire to honor the high-quality local ingredients that make Champlain Valley Creamery’s cheeses shine.

Picture hanging above Yoder’s desk made by his son, Nate