GREENSBORO, Vt. Outsourcing in the artisanal cheese world?
It may seem an unlikely course for a food niche so defined by its hands-on, back-to-the-farm ethic, but cheesemakers large and small are welcoming the opportunity to shift some of their burden.
That's partly because the men they are shifting it to are Mateo and Andy Kehler, the brothers and business partners behind the cultishly popular Greensboro, Vt., artisanal cheesemaking operation Jasper Hill Farm.
The reason? The brothers' newly constructed, state-of-the-art 22,000-square-foot cheese aging cellar -- a $3 million project touted as the nation's first facility dedicated to the ripening of natural rind cheeses.
The idea is to make it easier for small-time cheesemakers to produce and sell their cheeses.
"They will be able to process milk on their farms, capture the processor's margin and then ship their green cheese off to be ripened here at the Cellars at Jasper Hill," says Mateo Kehler.
The brothers not only will handle the ripening, but also sales and marketing.
Cheesemakers such as Karen and Steve Getz of Bridport, Vt., see it as a chance to get the expert help they need.
Some of the Getz's Dancing Cow cheese needed to age in a drier environment than their aboveground "cellar" could provide. Others are so delicate that shipping was a challenge.
"As a test we sent some through Mateo. They arrived in far away cheese shops in great shape," he says.
And their tomme style cheese, which is dry brushed to develop a firm, thin rind, "was better than we had aged ourselves," he said.
So now they will send two of their three cheeses to Jasper Hill to be aged, paying about a $1 a pound for two to six months of aging, says Andy Kehler.
"We're thrilled. It's huge. It allows us to avoid lots of employees," Getz said.
Without a facility such as this, cheesemakers not only need the time to manage the aging of their cheese -- which typically includes brushing and turning it -- but also must invest sometimes thousands of dollars for walk-in coolers or other temperature controlled cellar facilities.
"It's a big hurdle financially" for the small-scale cheesemaker, says Paul Kindstedt, a professor of dairy sciences with the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese at the University of Vermont.
While the aging facility itself is a boon for cheesemakers, he says the real value is the expertise and help offered.
With seven arched vaults, and 12,000 square feet underground, the Cellars at Jasper Hill look more like a massive war relic than a haven for healthy and tasty molds to grow.
The facility provides five different climate-controlled environments suitable for aging a variety of cheeses, from clothbound cheddars to bloomy rind cheeses, as well as blues, alpines and washed rind cheeses.
"We'll be able to ripen just about any type of cheese that a producer in the Green Mountains could possibly dream up," says Mateo Kehler.
He worked with an architect on the design after traveling to France and visiting 13 facilities in 12 days, then borrowing and marrying the ideas he liked best.
Mateo Kehler, who expects the facility to age between 50 and 60 cheeses from 30 to 40 producers, sees this as the first of several cheese cellars to be built around the state to support small artisanal cheesemaking.
Jasper Hill, which has a handful of employees, plans to hire about 20 over the next couple of years for the aging facility, to brush, turn, pierce, and paddle the cheeses before packaging them.
Though the building won't be complete until the end of the summer, Jasper Hill already has cheeses in the cellar.
Cabot's Clothbound Cheddar, a collaboration between Vermont's Cabot Creamery and Jasper Hill, has been housed there since December. It won "Best of Show" at the 2006 American Cheese Society competition.
Kehler admits that as a small cheesemaking business Jasper Hill is taking a "quantum leap" with the cellar.
"This year we'll make about 75,000 pounds of cheese and we'll have capacity here for about two million," he says. "We're going from hyper to warp speed."
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On the Net:
Jasper Hill Farm: http://www.jasperhillfarm.com
