Down a Georgia Road with Cheese
By Lorrie Baumann
CalyRoad Creamery’s retail shop in Sandy Springs, Georgia, is a key component in the business model that provides multiple revenue streams to keep Founder and Owner Robin Schick afloat while she exercises her passion for making artisanal cheeses. Her small creamery and its shop are located in a retail building in a commercial district at the heart of Sandy Springs, a suburb on the north side of Atlanta, Georgia.
Her business plan has three main components for producing revenue from her artisanal cheese production: the retail operation, which includes marketing events and classes as well as her shop sales; wholesale distribution to local foodservice establishments; and distribution to other regional retailers. She’s still working on the economics of a relationship with a wholesale foods distributor into retail that will be a key to real profitability, but she’s able to support her business with the revenues generated through the other streams. “We’re knocking on the door,” Schick said. “I think what we found is that it has to be a combination of revenue streams. We needed to develop the retail aspect — events with corporate team building in which companies bring in their staff and do a wine and cheese tasting or a class together. We do birthday parties here.”
CalyRoad Creamery really started a decade ago with a phone conversation between Schick and her sister Cathy Lynne, who was living on a 13-acre farm with some pet goats. “My sister and I were trying to decide if we wanted to work together and what we wanted to do, Schick says. “We were laughing and joking about milking the goats, and we got serious.” The two of them went to the University of Georgia’s Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development and asked them to do a feasibility study. With the university’s encouragement, Schick and her sister developed a business plan and then did some internships at local farms before heading off to the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese to learn how to make cheese. When they were ready, they found a goat dairy where they could launch their cheesemaking business with a 35-gallon cheese vat and a recipe for chevre while the farmer took care of the animal husbandry. “We quickly realized that there was no way we could learn both sides of this and do it well, so we concentrated on the cheesemaking,” Schick said.
As time went on, the farmer decided to retire from farming, the goat herd was adopted by another dairy, and Schick needed to find a new home for her cheesemaking operation. She decided to leave the farmstead concept behind in favor of a location closer to Atlanta’s urban market. CalyRoad Creamery found its new home in a small building about 60 or 70 years old on a side street in Sandy Springs, about 15 minutes north of downtown Atlanta. With 900 square feet of production space, 100 square feet of retail shop space and herself as the cheesemaker, Schick was back in business. “We had a very nice following in nine farmers markets and a nice following with wholesale into some of the white tablecloth restaurants in Atlanta,” she said. “We quickly realized that with a 35-gallon vat, we were never going to produce enough to make a living.”
That realization would be enough to knock the wind out of most women, and Schick was no exception. Then she had what she calls a “Little Epiphany,” which is now the name of one of her cheeses, a high-moisture, soft-ripened cow milk cheese with delicate floral notes that she’d just figured out how to make when she was at her most discouraged about the future of her business.
She’d just moved into the new production facility, and she was making cheese she loved, but with her tiny vat, she just wasn’t making money, she told her mom. Her mom asked her if she was actually losing money. Schick said no, she was covering her bills — she just wasn’t making a profit. “Then what’s the problem?” her mother asked. “Why are you measuring by money rather than by your experience that making your cheese makes you happy?”
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“It was Christmas time, and I thought they were so right,” Schick said. “It was my epiphany that it didn’t matter. … That cheese is near and dear to my heart.”
When the two retail suites next to her small shop became available, she had to decide whether to expand or quit, and she decided to expand. She sold her 35-gallon vat and bought a 350-gallon cheese vat and a 700-gallon bulk tank for milk. She built a couple of new aging rooms into the additional space so she can make more cheese varieties. With a total of three aging rooms now, one is dedicated to hard cheese, one to blue cheeses and the third to white mold cheeses.
While in the 35-gallon vat days she was making chevre, a Camembert-style cheese called WayPoint, a feta, and a blue cow milk cheese called Bit O’ Blue, now she’s doing cheddar cheese curds and a tomme-style cheese called Hilderbrand that’s aged a minimum of six weeks, with some of her Hilderbrand inventory now at eight or nine months as she builds her stock for a big order from Delta Airlines.
She has WayPoint and several aged goat cheeses flavored with various spices in her white mold room along with Big Bloomy, a plain aged goat cheese and Black Rock, a pepper bloomy rind that was a 2018 finalist in the Flavor of Georgia Food Product Contest, which, according to the Georgia Department of Agriculture, is “the state’s premier proving ground for small, upstart food companies as well as time-tested products.”
Her cheeses also include Red Top, a flavored goat cheese rubbed with smoked Spanish paprika that’s named after Red Top Mountain, where iron ore was once mined and which is now a state park. Named, like most of Schick’s goat cheeses, for another famous Georgia landmark, Little Stone Mountain is an ash-rind goat cheese that’s a customer favorite.
David Rospond has joined CalyRoad’s creamery as Cheesemaker, Cheese Oracle Tim Gaddis is teaching a couple of classes a month on cheese pairing and cheese board selection in CalyRoad’s shop and Schick is busy dreaming of new cheeses that Rospond will help her make. “I taught him all that I knew, and now we’re both working together to learn more and more,” she said of Rospond. “He has just been a joy to work with. He fell right into it. … He knew how to read the recipes, and he knew intuitively what to do, which is great.”
American Cheese Society Celebrates 35th Annual Conference and Competition
More than 1,400 cheese and specialty food professionals are expected to attend the American Cheese Society’s (ACS) 35th Annual Conference & Competition, “Forged in Cheese” at The David L. Lawrence Convention Center, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 25-28, 2018. More than 2,000 different cheese products are expected to be judged in the world-renowned ACS Judging & Competition, with the top cheeses named best of show. The public can sample and purchase competition cheeses at the Festival of Cheese and Cheese Sale on Saturday, July 28, from 7:00 – 9:30 p.m. Proceeds from the Cheese Sale benefit the nonprofit American Cheese Education Foundation. Tickets can be purchased at bit.ly/CheeseFest18.
Acknowledged as the foremost educational gathering for the cheese industry in North America, the ACS Conference and Competition broke all previous records in 2017, with 2,024 entries of cheeses and cultured dairy products from 281 companies, a 10 percent growth over the prior year. Thirty-six U.S. states, four Canadian provinces, Mexico and Colombia were represented, with a similar attendance expected in Pittsburgh at the 35th Annual Conference.
“It’s exciting to see the growth of this event each year,” said Nora Weiser, Executive Director of ACS. “It is a testament to how strong the cheese community truly is. Cheesemakers, buyers, retailers, distributors – pretty much anyone who cares about making, selling and enjoying great cheese – comes together for education, networking, and camaraderie. Business gets done, connections get made and friendships get solidified. There is really no other professional industry event quite like it!”
The ACS Judging & Competition will take place over two days, with winners announced at the Awards Ceremony on Friday, July 27. A panel of internationally renowned judges will evaluate the entries for their aesthetic and technical merits. Last year’s best of show winner was Tarentaise Reserve from Spring Brook Farm /Farms for City Kids Foundation in Vermont. St. Malachi from The Farm at Doe Run in Pennsylvania was second, while third-place best of show went to Cellars at Jasper Hill’s Harbison. The 2018 winners will be highlighted at the Festival of Cheese on July 28, where conference attendees and the general public can taste competition cheeses while sampling craft beer, cider and specialty foods from artisan producers around the country.
Education plays a central role at the ACS Conference, including:
- Opening keynote: “Ignite Your Goals: Simple steps to accomplish more and accelerate your success,” presented by Gerry O’Brion, author of “What Big Brands Know.”
- More than 40 educational sessions geared toward cheesemakers, retailers and distributors.
- Sensory Deep Dive: “How Sweet Are You? The Science of Taste“ session with Russell Smith of Dairy Australia (one session offered each day).
- First-come, first-serve tasting sessions, including “Celebrating a Fermentation Renaissance,” “‘Drink the Apples – Eat the Cheese!” “Old and New Frontiers in Bandaged Cheddar” and “The Cornerstone Project: An American Original.”
- ACS Certified Cheese Professional® Exam
- Inaugural ACS T.A.S.T.E. Test™ (Technical, Aesthetic, Sensory, Tasting Evaluation)
- ‘Meet the Cheesemaker’: Conference attendees can meet and sample cheese and cultured dairy products from more than 100 producers
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Registration for Forged in Cheese is available at www.cheesesociety.org.
Organic Valley Introduces Delicious Grassmilk Yogurt For Kids
Ask just about any parent and they’ll say yogurt in tubes and little cups delights their children. Those tube and little cups also make moms and dads feel good about providing a wholesome snack. That’s why Organic Valley, the number-one brand for organic, 100 percent grass-fed dairy, is introducing Grassmilk Kids Yogurt, a variation of its award-winning Grassmilk Yogurt – but formulated with kids’ palates in mind. It provides superior nutrition and great taste in packaging so kid-friendly, the under-5-foot set won’t even realize they’re eating something that will grow their bones, and their brains.
Available in both 4-ounce cups and 2-ounce tubes, Grassmilk Kids is a homogenized whole-milk yogurt made from extraordinary organic milk that comes from cows that are 100 percent grass-fed — receiving no supplemental feed, grain or soybeans in their diet, just fresh pasture and dried forages. Nutritionally, Organic Valley Grassmilk Kids Yogurt flows with exceptional levels of naturally occurring calcium, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and omega-3s.
“People are increasingly looking for organic, 100 percent grass-fed options because they understand that when cows eat as nature intended they produce more nutritious milk,” said Organic Valley Brand Manager Andrew Westrich. “But no one had created options made just for kids. As parents ourselves, we wanted to provide that superior nutrition in a product kids would love.”
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Organic Kids Yogurt is the largest sub-segment of organic yogurt – a $137 million category with units growing at 57 percent year over year. Organic Valley’s Grassmilk Kids Yogurt combines whole milk with organic fruit purees – strawberry, blueberry and bananaberry – to create a minimally processed snack with kids’ palates in mind. Smooth and creamy, it’s a great source of calcium and features a simple ingredient statement with no added gums or artificial flavors. And since it’s Organic Valley, it’s always organic, which means no antibiotics, synthetic hormones, toxic pesticides or GMOs.
Four-packs of kid-sized cups and eight-packs of tubes both have a suggested retail price of $4.79. These latest offerings join Organic Valley’s Grassmilk line, which features whole milk yogurt in tubs and cups, fluid whole and 2 percent milk and two cheddar cheese varieties.
