America’s Artisan Cheese Industry Is Struggling to Survive Without Restaurants

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In the wake of pandemic-related restaurant closures, many artisan cheesemakers have lost 50 to 70 percent of their sales

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But while this economic injury is severe, its distribution across the food industry is uneven. Even as sales from companies predominantly geared toward food service and restaurants have been obliterated, large-scale grocery chains have lines around the block and cannot keep their shelves stocked. This imbalance has left many in the artisan cheese world scrambling to survive.

As one of the largest of America’s artisan cheese producers, Jasper Hill does a little bit of everything. It sells cheese to small independent shops and distributors, along with grocery behemoths like Trader Joe’s and Costco. Mateo Kehler, Jasper Hill’s co-founder, told me that even though his company has relationships with these large purveyors, it is very difficult to turn on a pipeline to their customers overnight.

It is a truly terrible choice for any farmer to have to make, and one that was also reflective of Jasper Hill’s mission over the past 15 years to create a “Taste of Place” in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. That is not a job that the company can do alone. It requires a network of local dairy farms supplying it with milk, as well as a workforce to milk the animals; crop the land; make, age, and sell the cheese; and on and on.

 

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They should sell to Fresh Direct in NYC. They are always out of cheese

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