Angela and Howard Field
8 years ago, Howard Field saw an article about cheese making in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania newspaper and it inspired him to start making his own cheese (using our book, Home Cheese Making). He made a different cheese each weekend for the next five months.
When he was visiting various farms to buy raw milk, he talked to the farmers and realized that they were struggling. The only way to deal with the low price of milk was to make a “value added” product like cheese. But, marketing that cheese was virtually impossible for many of them.
Howard Field with Ricki Carroll (AKA The Cheese Queen) at the Mother Earth News Festival in Pennsylvania this summer.
In Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, there are a lot of cheese makers who don’t use modern conveniences like cars and computers. They are mostly Amish, Mennonite and Brethren. Many of them can’t be called directly on the phone – one has to leave them a message and they will call back from a designated phone. Needless to say, this makes it very difficult for them to sell their cheese.
As fate would have it, Howard lost his job selling fuel oil in 2010. That very morning he decided to help local cheese makers sell their cheese. He went home and told his wife he had left his job and would be working for another company. (He would have to tell her the name of it when he decided what to call it!)
This kind of thing is known as “jumping off a cliff.” But, if anyone could land on their feet in a situation like this, it’s Howard. He immediately began contacting cheese makers to see if they would be interested in working with him. They were, indeed, very interested.
One farmer (Amos Miller, who has 11 children and 180 goat kids) was considering making cheese and he asked Howard if he had a recipe for blue cheese. Howard said, “Yes, of course, but I’m too busy today- I’ll bring it to you tomorrow.” He then went home and started looking up blue cheese recipes online. He found one that Peter Dixon, a well-known cheese maker had posted. The farmer used it and made the blue cheese which is now sold as Farm Fromage Monterey Bleu. (Years later, Peter Dixon himself came to help Amos.)
Farm Fromage Monterey Bleu is made at crossroads of Monterey in Leola, PA.
When Howard started, he had 2 farms to work with – a cow dairy and a goat dairy, one cheese maker and 6 “so-so” cheeses. Howard and his wife now sell 32 world class cheeses from 15 farms and 7 cheese makers. (Angela came on board 6 years ago.)
Angela
Of course, the farmers in Lancaster County had already been making cheese for many years. Many of them don’t work on the Sabbath (Sundays), so, the Saturday milk wasn’t getting picked up until Monday night or even Tuesday if there was a Monday holiday. The milk companies didn’t want that milk, so the farmers used it to make cheeses like Colbys and Cheddars. They would add spices to the cheese or smoke it in order to mask any off flavors. Howard encouraged them to make more “worldly” cheeses.
Now, some of the cheese makers sell their cheese under the Farm Fromage brand umbrella (private label) and others have their own brand which Farm Fromage markets and sells (with a label stating that the cheese is distributed by Farm Fromage).
All of the cheeses in this display case at Harvest Lane Farm Market except the top 3 on the left are sold by Farm Fromage. The cheese on the third shelf (left) is a Jack cheese with mushrooms and leeks – fabulous when whipped into mashed potatoes. (click here)
Howard knows the story behind every cheese he sells. For example, the one on the 4th shelf (left) in the picture above was made by a farmer who was trying to make a goat feta. He called Howard and told him he was going to feed it to the pigs. Howard pointed out that he didn’t have any pigs and asked him to hold off. They took the cheese to an expert in the area who tasted it and said it was “lovely.” So, it became one of their most popular cheeses – Misty Lovely.
Howard and his wife try to arrange deliveries from the cheese makers to their business, but, they still have to spend up to a day a week moving cheese. Once they have it, they ship it UPS to their clients.
Special Reserve – Chantal style (French cheddar) aged 1 1/2 years in a cave, made by Henry Lapp in Wakefield, PA.
There are a variety of ways they sell their cheese:
- Online from their website (https://www.farmfromage.com/our-cheeses-2) – they sell the cheeses separately (a la carte) , in gift boxes and through their cheese of the month/season club.
- Wholesale to specialty stores restaurants, wineries.
- Craft shows, wine festivals and flower and garden shows (30 weekends a year). Howard and Angela have worked at educating people about cheese making as an art, so they are now invited to juried art shows, museum openings, etc.
Their booth at a flower show
By working hard, Howard and his wife have managed to make a living. This is amazing, considering the competition from the bigger creameries and cheese distributors. Most of their farms make cheese with 3 or less employees.
But, most importantly, they have helped make it possible for the artisan cheese makers in their area to stay on their farms and to keep their families together there. This is no small achievement!
Howard doesn’t think he is making as much use of the internet as he could be, but he is not able to hire marketing firms to help with this. If anyone reading this article would like to do an independent study project along these lines, please contact him.
