Foremost Farms is proud to announce three more of its employees are now licensed cheesemakers, a prestigious certification awarded only to the most dedicated fans of cheese. At the heart of America’s Dairyland, a cheesemaker’s license is required in Wisconsin to make and sell cheese for retail consumption. Whenever cheese is being manufactured or sold, a licensed person must be present.
To even be considered, applicants are required to have a minimum of 240 hours of hands-on experience under the direct supervision of a licensed cheesemaker. Additional routes to the license also require multiple certifications or a relevant college degree. The rigorous training culminates in a final exam, which consists of questions centered on the fundamentals of cheesemaking including food safety standards, cheese composition and dairy production.
Bethany Johnson, Dairy Product Technologist and one of Foremost Farms’ three newest licensed cheesemakers says her previous schooling helped her get a head start on the path to certification. After obtaining her four-year degree, worked for two years under a variety of cheesemakers, including Foremost Farms’ Master Cheesemaker Scott Navarre. Bethany says he gave her the confidence to go for the license. “I had been learning from him for the past two years and felt that gave me the experience needed to take the exam.” Now based at the cooperative’s headquarters in Middleton, Wisconsin, Bethany says because of her license she’s gained skills valuable to the cheese industry. “It gives me more insight into the process and how to make a better product for all of our plants.”
Also recently obtaining his cheesemaker license is Jeremiah “Jay” Rardin, a Production Supervisor at Foremost Farms’ Lancaster manufacturing plant. After working in cheese production for years, Jay says it felt like the next step. “A lot of us didn’t have licenses, there’d be two and then most of us making cheese were under them and I thought, ‘I’d like to get my own cheesemakers license.’” Jay adds the guidance and support he received from others played a big part in going after his license. “At the time I was a full-time college student and a parent. But my manager had a lot of faith in me and wanted me to be a cheesemaker, so I started training in that.”
Foremost Farms’ third most recent license recipient is Mike Shaw, also a Production Manager at Lancaster. Mike has a fond history with the cooperative, sharing that his family has been sending milk to Foremost Farms his entire life, with his father even working at the Lancaster and Richland Center plants. Mike says his experience in cheesemaking has been all hands-on. “When I originally started here, I was on the floor and had a very good mentor that taught me the ins and outs of the cheesemaking process.” With his certification, Mike now aims to achieve the ultimate achievement, becoming a Master Cheesemaker.
When it comes to their favorite cheeses, both Jay and Mike say a classic aged cheddar is the way to go, something their plant specializes in. Bethany, however went a different route. “My favorite cheese is probably an aged gouda because it’s just delicious on its own and you can use it in a lot of recipes too. But I love all the cheeses we make.”
Wisconsin is currently home to more than 1,200 licensed cheese makers, helping the state to churn out more than three billion pounds of cheese a year. Of that, Foremost Farms is proud to produce about 500-million pounds of cheese per year, equaling roughly one-sixth of the state’s total.
Wisconsin and Switzerland remain the only two places in the world to require a license to produce cheese.