Vermont’s Cheese Mecca

A look at diverse cheesemakers across the state.

Vermont’s picturesque landscape is dotted with working farms, many of which include award-winning cheesemakers. “Vermont has a great co-op nature, and that’s the case for our community, which is what is unique and lovely about our state,” says Haley Elkins, executive director, Vermont Cheese Council. “We are a little state with mineral-rich soil that provides a unique terroir; you can’t make Vermont cheese anywhere but in Vermont.”

The green mountains running down the state’s spine don’t provide space for large-scale dairies, so most farms are small and use traditional, artisan cheesemaking methods. “Up to 225 types of cheeses are available here at any given time,” Elkins notes. “And our Vermont Cheese Festival is so popular because visitors can get the cheese directly from the makers.”

Cheese connoisseurs can see these operations firsthand on the Vermont Cheese Trail, but here Cheese Connoisseur provides a sneak peek of these farmstands.

BRIDPORT CREAMERY
Bridport, VT

In business for about 12 years, Bridport head cheesemaker Nicole Foster began her career making cheese on her family farm. “I first took care of cows and calves, but wanted to try something different, so I built this creamery,” she says.

Foster purchases the milk from her daughter, sister and brother-in-law’s nearby farm, and produced 45,000 pounds of cheese this past year. Bridport Creamery is known for its award-winning cheese curds, along with colby, raclette, cheddar and a farmstead signature recipe called Swisserella. The company mostly sells locally in New England but has some national and online distribution.

“The support of the Vermont Cheese Council and other local cheesemakers made it easier to start my business,” she says.

AGRI-MARK/CABOT CREAMERY COOPERATIVE
Waitsfield, VT

Founded in 1919, Cabot Creamery is a farmer-owned cooperative that has become synonymous with exceptional cheddar. “While we may be the largest of Vermont’s cheesemakers,” says Jed Davis, vice president of strategic engagement and sustainability, “compared to others across the country, we’re tiny.”

Its cheddars have earned numerous national honors, including awards in 2025 from the American Cheese Society (ACS), Wisconsin Dairy Expo and the U.S. Cheese Championships.

“We believe that producing great cheese goes hand in hand with caring for our communities, our employees and the planet,” Davis explains. “That’s why, when people began asking about our sustainability practices, we sought third-party certification from B Lab and became a Certified B Corporation.”

The B Corp standard measures how companies balance purpose and profit through accountability, transparency and social and environmental performance. “At the heart of everything we do is our commitment to our member farmers,” says Davis. “Our goal is to ensure family farms remain viable for generations to come.”

CHAMPLAIN VALLEY CREAMERY
Middlebury, VT

Champlain Valley Creamery opened in November 2003 and now has a staff of two who produce 50,000 pounds of cheese a year. “We started in a 750-square-foot space with fresh cheese, then added bloomy rind,” says Carleton Yoder, owner/head cheesemaker. “We worked with a local economic development authority, who hooked us up with a distillery to share space with.”

The company now works out of a 1,500-square-foot facility, which includes the production area. Champlain purchases its cow’s milk from a local farm with 100% grass-fed animals. “We separate milk on our own,” Yoder says. “For many years, we couldn’t utilize all the skim milk, until we figured out how to produce a queso fresco line.”

Champlain now offers both plain and flavored queso fresco, in addition to other cream and triple cream cheeses. These include a peppadew and jalapeno cheese and a smoked version. One of its most popular cheeses, Pyramid Scheme, is four sided with a layer of ash under the rind.

CROOKED MILE CHEESE
Waterford, VT

Roberta Gillot became the sole operator of Crooked Mile Cheese about three years ago. “I raise my own goats and produce cheese on the farm,” she says. “Our milk travels 45 feet from the animals to the cheese vat.”

She says the cheese is so fresh because it is made so often and doesn’t have to travel. “I’m very small; we may be the smallest cheesemaker in the state,” she says. “I just milked eight to 10 goats this year.”

This boutique operation still produces about 700 to 800 pounds of cheese a season, which is less than in the past, but still sustainable. “I can feed goats, so I can control the cheese flavor,” she says. “I know the forage the animals are getting is from our site and of the highest quality, which is hard to control when purchasing milk elsewhere.”

Crooked Mile produces fresh chevre and other short-term cheese varieties. “I like to include naturally foraged products like ramps or wild garlic for bloomy rinds,” she says. “I wrap cheeses in ramp leaves to give them a mushroom flavor.”

CROWLEY CHEESE
Mount Holly, VT

America’s oldest cheesemaker, Crowley Cheese, has been making cheese commercially in Mount Holly since 1824. The Crowley Cheese Factory was opened by founder Winfield Crowley in 1882, as one of thousands of cheese factories in operation at that time.

Today, the factory is America’s oldest remaining cheese factory. “It opened as a co-op, which was common for a guaranteed milk supply at that time,” says Galen Jones, who owns Crowley Cheese with his wife Jill. “Participating farms received dividends in addition to getting paid for milk.”

After Winfield’s death in 1934, his son George took over until he died in 1964, and his son Robert ran the company. Two years later, Robert passed away prematurely of a heart attack, and the Smith family down the road took over. The Joneses have been operating the business since 2009.

“We make a cheddar variant with a rinsed curd recipe,” says Jones. “Our raw milk cheese continues to be made the way it always has at the same location.”

The company has a robust shipping business, with samplers, as well as wheels ranging in size from 2.5 to 5 and 20-pound sizes.

“Today, we have many flavors but use one cheese recipe,” says Jones. “With our rinse, we push more moisture into the cheese curd for a moister cheddar that is less acidic; this makes it age twice as fast as traditional cheddar.”

FAT SHEEP FARM
Hartland, VT

In business for almost a decade, Fat Sheep Farm’s owners, Suzy Kaplan and husband Todd Heyman, didn’t plan to sell cheese commercially. “We wanted a homestead with a dairy animal,” says Kaplan. “I wanted a cow, but my husband convinced me sheep would be better so we could make manchego-style, one of my favorites from my trip to Spain.”

The farm has 26 sheep, with 12 milked each season to create its Manchiko cheese. In addition to selling manchego-style cheese and other aged cheeses locally, she conducts cheesemaking workshops.

The company’s manchego-style won in its category at ACS this year. Its Autumn’s Blend, named after their daughter and blended with sheep’s and cow’s milk, came in second in ACS’s American Made/International Style category.

“Our Meadow’s Magic, named after our other daughter, came in third,” says Kaplan. After taking workshops with Parish Hill’s Peter Dixon, the couple has been working toward making all its cheeses with natural cultures.

JASPER HILL FARM
Greensboro Bend, VT

In the late 90s, the Kehler family purchased a farm with a 50-cow barn that had fallen out of use. Soon after farmstead cheesemaking began in 2003, an unlikely collaboration with nearby Cabot Creamery revealed a gap in the market for American artisan cheddar.

“The Kehlers began offering it as a co-branded cheese called Cabot Clothbound,” says Zoe Brickley, director of communications. “The large wheels, made by Cabot but cave-aged in the farmhouse cellar, helped Jasper Hill aggregate enough weight to access growing distribution markets.”

In 2006, Cabot Clothbound won Best of Show at ACS, which spurred construction of an innovative 22,000 square foot underground cheese aging facility. Two decades later, the original creamery attached to the Kehler’s farmhouse has been renovated to include European copper-lined vats.

“We now have this dedicated raw milk creamery that uses milk from our own herd, and we also buy milk from five local family farms for use in our soft cheese creamery,” says Brickley. “We support our neighbors by paying a premium price, determined by a third-party nonprofit; when their costs go up, we pay more so the farmers don’t get squeezed.”

Today, about a third of Jasper Hill’s sales are from its Cabot Creamery co-op partnership, a third are raw milk cheeses, and the last third are crafted from partner farms’ milk.

PARISH HILL CREAMERY
Westminster, VT

Parish Hill Creamery started in 2013 as a seasonal raw milk cheese business by Peter Dixon and Rachel Fritz Schaal. Production starts in early May and ends around Halloween. “This timing gives good grass as feed, although we supplement with dry hay as needed,” says Dixon. “This way, we can make the cheese we want to make, which is important to us.”

After attending natural cheese sessions at the Slow Cheese festival in Bra, Italy, they continued to refine their craft. “We were already using very simple ingredients — raw milk, traditional animal rennet, sea salt evaporated on the East Coast and autochthonous starter cultures,” says Dixon. “We don’t buy packaged starters, which is unusual in the U.S.”

The couple also realized shorter milk storage at specific temperatures positively impacted cheese flavor. “We had to find real niche markets but stuck with our guns and foundational plan, and we won’t depart from that,” says Dixon.

Any time a new cheese is developed, handmade ingredients are incorporated. For example, one of their first cheeses, Humble, is washed with hard cider that they ferment themselves.

Parish Hill is currently making 13 different cow’s milk cheeses and has three new sheep milk and mixed milk varieties. Humble, Idyll and Jack’s Blue won Super Gold medals at the recent World Cheese Awards.

SHELBURNE FARMS
Shelburne, VT

Shelburne Farms is formerly affiliated with the famed Vanderbilt family and is focused on regenerative agriculture. “One of the ways we do that is through our cheddar,” says Tom Perry, cheese sales manager. “Even with the constraints of no pesticides, you can create a prosperous business.”

The company concentrates on one style of cheese — cheddar, which is aged anywhere from six months to three years. It has added a beer cheddar in collaboration with a local microbrewery that is beer-infused, as well as a smoked cheddar in partnership with Grafton Village Cheese.

“We also offer a clothbound cheddar and Marshall’s Reserve, which are aged at Jasper Hill,” says Perry. Its one-year cheddar won first place in its category at ACS this year, and its six-month cheddar won similar accolades in 2018. The clothbound cheddar won best in show in 1990.

In addition to a retail business, restaurant and inn, Shelburne Farms is known for its educational endeavors. “We offer professional development programs, school programs, and work with the University of Vermont,” says Perry.

As for its cheese business, Shelburne Farms positions itself as a cheesemaking incubator, as it has been the launching pad for several of its former cheesemakers. “We are a unique entity and one of the few farmstead cheddar producers in the U.S.,” says Perry. “We do a great job straddling the line between being a commodity and artisan cheese.”

SPRING BROOK FARM CHEESE
Reading, VT

Farms for City Kids Foundation was established in the mid-90s to bring kids from urban areas to work at Spring Brook Farm for a week at a time. “This shows them where food comes from, how to take care of animals, gardening and also making food,” says Lisa Griffin, cheesemaker.

In 2008, due to a surplus of cow’s milk, the farm’s cheesemaking program began. “We also make award-winning cheese called Tarentaise,” says Griffin. “We then partnered with two other local farms and added two cheeses — Reading and Ashbrook. But now we just use our own milk and similar methods and equipment for production of these French Alpine-style cheeses.”

Cheeses are produced with raw milk from Jersey cows on the premises. “We turn and wash them all by hand in our cave aging facility,” says Griffin.

Tarentaise Reserve won ACS Best in Show in 2014 and 2017, plus all Spring Brook Farm cheeses have won numerous awards in their categories.