Championing cheese

The Victory Cheese program raises awareness of the plight of small producers during the pandemic

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Not much winning is happening these days for anyone connected to the food industry, so even a little victory is worth celebrating. 

That’s why artisanal cheesemakers in Wisconsin and all across the U.S. are welcoming a national partnership created to market cheeses and help small producers who have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Victory Cheese is a coalition of industry associations, retailers and state organizations including the Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin. 

The most visible action by Victory Cheese, a name inspired by the World War II victory gardens, is the creation of Victory Cheese Boxes. (The organization’s tagline is “Choose It or Lose It.”) Victory Cheese leaves it up to cheesemakers and cheese shops to create their own boxes but the program provides branding, marketing and a website that lists all the companies involved. The actual purchase is through the cheesemaker or shop. Fifteen states are represented. 

“Everybody decided that a rising tide will lift all ships and are trying to promote the welfare of all American cheese producers,” says Andy Hatch, co-owner and cheesemaker at Uplands Cheese Company in Dodgeville. “That’s been encouraging. Hopefully that collective effort means it will really resonate instead of all these little companies trying to squeak out new ways to try to sell our products.”

The rise of small-batch, artisanal cheese in recent decades has been one of the great success stories of the American food scene. In Wisconsin, initiatives that began in the 1990s to ensure the state’s leadership in cheese production helped create the foundation for that success. In 1997, the state produced 50 million pounds of specialty cheese (that is, a cheese of limited production with an emphasis on natural flavors and textures). That grew to 174 million in 2007 and 799 million pounds in 2017 — 47 percent of the specialty cheese in the U.S.

Cheese companies like Uplands have been hit particularly hard in the pandemic because their primary customers aren’t grocery stores; their customers are restaurants and independent cheese shops that have been closed or have had limited service for months. So while commodity cheese has been flying out of grocery store deli cases since the pandemic began, the market for premium-priced artisanal cheese all but disappeared.

“It’s been scary,” Hatch says. “Our income dropped precipitously and that’s very alarming. We are OK for a while but if we get to the fall and things haven’t changed, we’ll be in a tight spot.”

Uplands sells a Victory Box that is a collaboration between three well-known Wisconsin cheesemakers. The box includes a half pound each of Uplands’ classic Pleasant Ridge Reserve, Hook’s 10-year cheddar and Roelli’s Red Rock, as well as Quince & Apple apple-cranberry preserves and Treat spiced pecans. The box sells for $75, with free shipping, and is available on the Uplands website. Ten percent of the sales will go to the food pantry at Dodgeville’s Southwestern Wisconsin Community Action Program. 

For Hatch, the shipping aspect of the business represents a shift. His company had done some direct sales, but now it’s what will help Uplands survive.

“One of the reasons I wanted to do the Victory Box was to force myself to get more efficient at shipping to people’s homes,” Hatch says. “You could say the writing has been on the wall for years that the business was going this direction for people’s purchasing habits, and COVID has accelerated that.”

Cheese production continues at Uplands; some of it will likely age longer than originally planned. Pleasant Ridge Reserve ages 10-14 months, but Uplands also sells one that ages for at least 15 months. Now Hatch has added direct sales to his job description, but knows it’s what he and other cheesemakers have to do right now.

“The refrain I hear from everyone in the food businesses is we’re working twice as hard to make the same or less money,” he says. “That’s definitely the case with this, but there is a greater good that can happen in the long run.”

Another Wisconsin box is available through Landmark Creamery in Paoli, one of several the company plans. “Victory Cheese Box #1: Milk Mavens, Women Who Work Whey Hard” features cheeses from companies owned by women cheesemakers. Cheeses include Landmark’s Pecora Nocciola as well as picks from Boxcarr Handmade Cheese of North Carolina, Dutch Girl Creamery of Nebraska, and Redhead Creamery of Minnesota. The box sells for $79 and is available through Landmark’s website. Maroon Calabash, a Milwaukee-based cooperative of Black doulas, will receive $5 for each box sold.

“We already sell gift boxes, so this isn’t a stretch for us,” says Anna Thomas Bates, co-owner of Landmark Creamery. “We were interested in this to be able to collaborate with other cheesemakers.”

Fromagination is also selling a Victory Cheese Box that includes a quarter pound of four Wisconsin cheeses: Hook’s 5-Year Cheddar, Deer Creek’s The Stag, La Clare Family Creamery’s Evalon and Roth’s Grand Surchoix. It sells for $75 with 10 percent benefiting Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin.

Beyond the boxes, producers are finding other ways of generating income to keep their businesses afloat. Landmark Creamery has partnered with other local food producers to sell and deliver products, ranging from vegetables to chocolate. Its cheese, as well as that of other local producers, is available through its delivery service, too.

“I’m appreciative that we’ve been able to do these boxes and the grocery delivery but it really is twice the work for not the same amount of money,” Bates says. “We’re really hustling to stay in the game and survive this.”