Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
Issue link: https://specialtyfoodmagazine.epubxp.com/i/328566
Summer Fancy Food Show Booth 1845 Summer Fancy Food Show Booth 4220 cheese focus she admires a Selles-sur-Cher–style goat cheese called Neige and the Muenster-style Monkster, a raw cow's milk disk. "It's prob- ably the stinkiest cheese we have in our case right now," she says. Expensive, too. Retailing at $36 to $38 a pound, and with little or no name recogni- tion, these new cheeses don't sell themselves. "As mongers, we have to make special men- tion," Amey acknowledges, "but it seems that people are willing to pay the extra few dollars for well-made, interesting cheeses." A Unified Movement Hooper credits the Vermont Cheese Council with the explosive growth of cheesemaking in her state. The council's promotional work caught the eye of state officials, who saw the benefit of value-add- ed products for the state's struggling dairy farms. "All the economic development [in cheesemaking] people started pointing to as an opportunity," Hooper recalls. In 2004, the University of Vermont opened the Vermont Institute of Artisan Cheese, hosting skill-building and food- safety workshops for cheesemakers. The workshops ceased last year, for various rea- sons, but they helped "create a culture of food safety in Vermont," says Mateo Kehler, co-owner of Jasper Hill Farm. Vermont merchants, predictably, are the biggest boosters of the state's specialty cheeses. At Healthy Living Market in South Burlington, cheese buyer Cherie Cyr stocks The Vermont Institute of Artisan Cheese's skill-building and food- safety workshops for cheesemakers helped "create a culture of food safety in Vermont." 70 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE specialtyfood.com cheeseFocus_Sum14.indd 70 6/5/14 12:03 PM