Cheese business, Cow cheese, Fifth Town Artisan Cheese, Local Food Plus, Petra Cooper, Prince Edward County, Quinte Crest Tomme, Rose Haus

Fifth Town expands into cow’s-milk cheese

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Petra Cooper (left) and Jean McCormack among the Holsteins at Quinte Crest Farm.

Only 20 months after Fifth Town Artisan Cheese first began producing cheese, Petra Cooper, founder and president, isn’t resting on the laurels of critical acclaim that greeted her goat and sheep cheeses. Since late December, cow’s milk is also being turned into cheese at the Prince Edward County creamery—with the first offerings going on sale in May.

Sampling will be possible this weekend in Toronto at the Ontario Cheese Society’s booth at Green Living Show and Monday evening at Canadian Artisan Cheese Marketplace & Prince Edward County Wine Tasting.

Quinte Crest Tomme is the new cheese crafted by Stephanie Diamant, Fifth Town’s master cheesemaker. It will be somewhat similar to Lighthall Tomme, Fifth Town’s award-winning goat cheese. (Click here to learn what makes a tomme a tomme.)

Quinte Crest Tomme takes its name from Quinte Crest Farm—just a few minutes northwest of Fifth Town—where grass is turned into milk by a herd of 30 happy Holsteins under the care of Jean McCormack, one of Ontario’s few female dairy farmers. Jean and Petra are near neighbours as the farm is just a few minutes northwest of the creamery.

Quinte Crest is a single-herd cheese that is aged for three to six months in the underground cave at Fifth Town under the care of affineur Phil Collman (who happens to be married to the cheesemaker).

Not content with just one cow’s-milk cheese, Petra has her team at Fifth Town developing a second. It will be called Rose Haus. Ten percent of net sales will be donated to Rose House Museum which chronicles life in North Marysburgh (originally known as Fifth Town) from the 19th century to the present.

Rose Haus, once approved by government agencies, and Quinte Crest Tomme will initially be sold from Fifth Town’s store at the creamery 15 minutes beyond Picton in Prince Edward County.

Fifth Town Artisan Cheese Company bills itself as a “contemporary, environmentally and socially responsible enterprise positioned as a niche producer of fine handmade goat and sheep milk cheese.”

All of Fifth Town’s goat cheeses are made with Prince Edward County milk that is Local Food Plus certified. The cheeses are aged by time honoured artisanal methods in Ontario’s only subterranean aging facility. Fifth Town is a Platinum LEED certified dairy and won the Premier’s Award for Agri-Food Innovation in May 2009. Fifth Town opened in June 2008 as a federally licensed dairy. Currently, it employs 14 people and buys milk from three local, family-owned goat farms and three local, family-owned sheep farms. More than 80 percent of the milk processed by Fifth Town is goat milk.

Andy Shay, Cheese business, Events, Gurth Pretty, Ontario Cheese Society, Société des fromages du Quebec

Ontario Cheese Society goes Canadian

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Ontario Cheese Society, during the course of its annual conference and general meeting next Monday, will evolve into a pan-Canadian organization. In an interview with CheeseLover.ca, here’s how Gurth Pretty, chairman of the society’s board, and Andy Shay, a society board member and one of the conference organizers, explain what’s happening.

CheeseLover.ca: What has prompted the Ontario Cheese Society (OCS) to consider going national?

Gurth Pretty

Gurth: The notion has been mentioned by different board members over the last year. When Andy brought to the board’s attention that ongoing trade talks between Canadian officials and representatives from other countries could affect our industry, this was the signal that a national organization was needed to voice the concerns of Canadian cheesemakers.

CheeseLover.ca: What action will take place at the OCS annual general meeting next Monday?

Andy Shay

Andy: This is a very exciting time for the Ontario Cheese Society and months of planning are coming to a head at the AGM. Really, we will be asking the membership to ratify the ground work that we have put in place for the society to begin its national agenda. The proposal to go national has been drafted and sent to members and will be voted on at the conference. In addition, we will be asking the members to contribute to the renaming process. The board will sift through the proposals and will announce the new name in May. Coming up there are a few board member seats that will be available to be filled and we hope that we will be able to draw from a diverse national basis. We are also thinking about the AGM for 2011. In a national society, it would move around the country. Next year, the American Cheese Society will be meeting in Montreal, and that might create very interesting opportunities for the 2011 AGM.

CheeseLover.ca: Are there any other provincial organizations like the OCS? Do they support the idea of a national cheese society?

Gurth: La Société des fromages du Quebec is the only other provincial cheese organization in Canada. Several Quebec cheesemakers and distributors were invited to attend this year’s “Unity” conference. Several members are registered in both organizations. We will discuss with la Société’s executive officers, to hear their comments and suggestions.

CheeseLover.ca: Does OCS only represent the artisan cheese industry? What will the scope of the national organization be?

Gurth: The OCS represents all facets of the Ontario cheese industry, from the large industrial cheesemaker to the tiny artisanal-farmstead operation, where they produce cheese from their flock of 25 sheep. The mandate of the national organization is to be written and agreed to by the interim board. I personally hope that the organization will represent all cheesemakers making cheese with Canadian milk.

CheeseLover.ca: How many members does OCS currently have? Are there several categories? What success has OCS had over the six years since its founding?

Andy: Currently there are well over 100 members representing cheesemakers, milk producers, distributors, retailers, restaurateurs, educators, media and enthusiasts. One of the original goals was to increase communication among all aspects of the industry and that has been accomplished in several ways. First, the AGM has turned out to be a really important annual event for connecting and reconnecting with the cheese network as well as being a chance to regenerate with new ideas. Second, the AGM marketplace and other consumer shows that the society hosts during the year has increased the public profile and access to the cheeses and the cheesemakers that have not always been easy to find. Third, the communication between the Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO) and cheesemakers and between the cheesemakers has been opened and there is now a regular back and forth between those parties, about policy, but also about daily operation. We have also increased communication for all members through the monthly publishing of The Slice e-mail, a sort of bulletin board of all things cheese. One other initiative coming up will be the membership card which will entitle the holder to a 10-percent discount at participating retailers.

The Ontario Cheese Society’s sixth annual conference, AGM and marketplace takes place Monday, April 26, at Hart House on the University of Toronto campus in downtown Toronto.

The public is invited to the Canadian Artisan Cheese Marketplace & Prince Edward County Wine Tasting that will take place Monday evening. Click here for more information.

Cheese business, Invest In Cheese

Cheese Business News launched

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Cheese Business News (CBN) is being launched today by Invest In Cheese, the economic development initiative of four counties in Eastern Ontario.

InvestInCheese.ca aims to become a clearing house for cheese news and the one-stop authority for start-ups in cheesemaking and other aspects of the cheese business. The long-term goal is to foster growth of the cheese industry in Frontenac, Hastings, Lennox and Addington, and Prince Edward counties which have united under the banner of Ontario’s Artisan Cheese Region.

Spearheaded by Dan Taylor, Prince Edward’s economic development officer, Invest In Cheese hopes to return Eastern and Central Ontario to its heyday as the chief cheese producing region in Canada. In the 1920s, there were more than 270 cheesemakers operating from Peterborough eastward in Ontario, producing a gazillion pounds of cheese, mainly cheddar, much of it for export to the United Kingdom.

Today, there are only 17 cheesemakers in the region—many of them, however, producing exceptional artisan cheese.

CheeseLover.ca was recently invited to a brainstormer hosted by Dan where the idea for CBN was hatched. Also participating was Gurth Pretty of Cheese of Canada, Andy Shay of Provincial Fine Foods, Malcolm Jolley of Good Food Revolution, and two associates of Dan’s in Prince Edward’s economic development, Karin Desveaux-Potters and Caitlin den Boer.

If you’re into cheese, these are heady times. All sorts of interesting projects are coagulating in many corners of Ontario. One way to stay current is to bookmark InvestInCheese.ca and check it regularly. Another way is to enter your email address in the upper right of this blog to subscribe to posts here. Your address will not be sold, traded or given away.