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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Dairy farms find cheese renaissance
  • Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:33:33 -0600



Dairy farms find cheese renaissance
Reuters
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080724.wcheese0724/BNStory/Business


July 24, 2008 at 8:08 AM EDT

WEST PAWLET, Vermont — Standing in a 144-year-old Vermont dairy farm making
goat's milk Romano cheese in a 150-gallon stainless-steel mixer, Peter Dixon
is at the heart of a revolution in American cheesemaking.

The 50-year-old dairy farmer is monitoring the stirring of the milk, which
gets heated and mixed with a starter to separate the curd from the whey.
Eventually molded into 20-pound wheels, the piquant product will command $22
(U.S.) a pound in high-end food shops and farmer's markets.

“I like to bring out the real character of the milk, rather than add a lot of
cultures,” explained Mr. Dixon, who will scrub the cheese periodically with
salt water to help its flavour along as it ages three to four months in a
cave-like room.

The Consider Bardwell farm is one of a growing number of small-scale farms in
Vermont and across the country that are meeting demand for high-end farmstead
cheese, a business model some find far more profitable than selling commodity
milk.

Mr. Dixon knows all too well the need for new financial models after the
collapse of his family's dairy farm under crushing debt. He works for
Consider Bardwell's owners, a couple who split their time between New York
careers and the growing cheese business.

The 300-acre goat farm is one of 40 artisanal cheesemaking operations in
Vermont, up from five a decade ago, and reflects a national trend of
expanding U.S. production of handmade, specialty cheeses from California to
Maine that seek to rival European-produced varieties.

Membership in the American Cheese Society has more than tripled from 426 in
2001 to 1,418 currently, and includes retailers, importers and even food
writers.

A variety of factors are behind the surge of interest in farmstead cheese,
ranging from a more discerning American palate to concerns about the safety
of mass-produced foods.

A surging European currency has also helped by making high-end American
cheeses – which can sell for $25 a pound, six times that of supermarket
varieties – more competitive with those imports.

For some, like Mr. Dixon, the appeal is simple: The interest in cheese helps
small-scale farmers like him stay in business.

“In addition to what this farm produces, we're buying milk from four other
farms, which helps sustain them,” Mr. Dixon said at the farm, which lies
outside a town of 1,436 people along Vermont's picturesque rural border with
New York. “That's part of my goal here, to keep the farms in the landscape.”

Vermont has seen 333 dairy farms fail over the past five years, with 1,100
remaining according to state figures, down from 11,019 in 1950. The main
competitive challenge is massive Western dairy farms that milk hundreds of
animals.

Farmstead cheese operations like Bardwell represent a sliver of the 9.7
billion pounds of cheese the United States produces and the $387-million
worth of cheese it exports each year. There are no official statistics
measuring U.S. production of specialty cheeses but evidence from farmers and
industry officials suggests steady growth.

“As the quality of the cheese improves, the consumer says, ‘Wow this is
really fantastic, I love this,”' said Cathy Strange, global cheese buyer for
Whole Foods Market Inc, the largest publicly held U.S. natural food chain.

Artisanal cheese sales have grown steadily, she said.

For farmers, cheese making offers a clear economic advantage. Fluid milk
sells for about $18 per 100 pounds , but when made into cheese can bring in
about five times as much revenue.

“You just have so much more control over your destiny,” said David Smith, 62,
who started making cheese 23 years ago to improve profits at his dairy farm.

Mr. Smith's farmstead Gouda, cheddar and havarti are made on the Winchendon,
Massachusetts, farm using milk from its 200 cows. It retails for about $8 to
$13 a pound – a price Mr. Smith said meets less resistance today than it did
when he started Country Cheese, his cheese business.

“With cheese you have a lot more flexibility,” Mr. Smith said. “With fluid
milk you have to sell it or smell it, but with cheese the older it gets, it
has more value.”

U.S. cheesemakers have also been helped by the euro's rise – up 17 per cent
against the dollar over the past year.

“American cheese once seemed quite expensive,” said Matt Rubiner, owner of a
cheese shop in Great Barrington, Vermont, whose stock of American cheese has
grown from nothing to about a quarter of its selection just in the past few
years.

“Those days are gone, at least for the time being,” Mr. Rubiner said.
“American cheeses ... often seem something of a bargain compared to some
European cheeses.”





  • [Livingontheland] Dairy farms find cheese renaissance, Tradingpost, 07/25/2008

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