Better than cheddar
Wisconsin cheese producers are raising the bar on gourmet cheese

by Sophia Estante

The grass must be lush—soft, green and thick. Out in Dodgeville at Uplands Cheese Company, grass like this only grows from May to October and sometimes not even then, if the weather doesn’t cooperate. It’s the flavor of this crisp summer grass that comes through in the taste of the Uplands Cheese Company’s specialty cheese, Pleasant Ridge Reserve, which is made of aged, raw milk and is comparable to French Gruyere; although it defies easy classification. In the history of cheese making, Pleasant Ridge Reserve is the only cheese to win Best Overall Cheese at the U.S. Cheese Championship (2003) and Best of Show at the American Cheese Society (2001), the only two national cheese competitions. This cheese is a far cry from the big orange blocks typically found in grocery store coolers. 

The nation and the world know Wisconsin for its cheese. and Jeanne Carpenter, communication specialist at the new Dairy Business Innovation Center (DBIC), wants to keep it that way, as do Wisconsin cheese producers like Mike Gingrich, an owner of Uplands Cheese Company. According to Carpenter, for the state to stay a big-name player in the industry, Wisconsinites need to think more like Californians, who have, arguably, in recent years swept the dairy market right out from under the Midwest competition. The mission of the DBIC is to get Wisconsin cheese makers producing and raking in the profits from the specialty products America is clamoring for.

Carpenter, along with 14 other consultants from around the world who work for the DBIC, offers advice to Wisconsin cheese makers daily via the Internet and over the phone. A consultant from New Zealand offers technical information about equipment. A consultant from the Netherlands helps guide people who want to relocate a cheese operation to Wisconsin. And an in-state consultant offers expert advice about how to design cheese labels.  “She’s our label expert; she knows everything there is to know about cheese labels,” says Carpenter. 

The DBIC opened its doors this April, only it doesn’t have real doors because it’s a virtual operation (www.dbicusa.org) supported by a $2 million federal grant meant to reinvigorate the state’s dairy sector. U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl advocated on the federal level for the grant that got the DBIC up and running. “He’s a good friend of the Wisconsin cheese maker,” Carpenter says. “Helping out the dairy industry was one of his personal goals during this term in office.”           

With Gingrich as one of its success stories and 70 other clients, the DBIC seems to be doing its job. “We thought, before we started, that it might be hard to get people interested in what we wanted to do,” Carpenter says. “We thought there might be a resistance to change. But what we found was that people in this state have a built-up passion, a built-up excitement. Some people come from families that have milked cows for three generations, and they don’t want to struggle anymore. They want to make good cheeses, and they want to turn a profit and they want to know how to do it, and that’s where we come in.” The center’s goal is to increase the volume of specialty cheeses produced in the state by 25 percent in the next five years.   

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