GROWING COMPANY CULTURE IN THE ARTISAN CHEESE BIZ!

Contributed by Karin Desveaux-Potters, EDO, Gastronomy Cluster

Happy Birthday, Fifth Town!

Quinte Crest and Rose Haus Cheeses

Fifth Town Artisan Cheese Company turns two this weekend! First opening its’ doors in 2008, growth has been fast and furious for the teeny, tiny, green dairy in Cressy, Prince Edward County.

The artisan cheese business is currently “ripe” as industry trends in the food world lean toward hand crafted, unusual cheeses that tempt and challenge the palette; Fifth Town is producing some of the most exciting products within this genre.

Fifth Town and the Rose House Museum have combined their interests in keeping tradition and local history alive by working to officially launch a new cows’ milk, single note, washed rind cheese this weekend called Rose Haus.

The Rose House Museum is just minutes down the road from Fifth Town. “We wanted to call it Rose House after the museum but changed it to Rose Haus to again, connect it to the Germanic influence in the area”.  Fifth town will be donating 10% of the retail sales to the museum.

Among many awards and acknowledgements that Fifth Town has received, the dairy was most recently named a “Canadian B Corporation”, which is the result of receiving a very high score from both customers and staff on criteria rating it as an overall responsible, respectfully operated company.

What has the secret of Fifth Town’s success been? In a word, people. Petra Cooper, President and founder of Fifth Town, is acutely aware of the importance of creating an environment that enables employees to feel engaged, valued and appreciated in the workplace.

Says office manager Silvia Botnick “To me, Fifth Town is not a job, it’s a passion…I just want to give the best I have and help in any way so that people will become Fifth Town fans like we are here at the dairy.”

The retail staff echo Silvia’s sentiments: “Here at Fifth Town we are all part of a family style team – without being family. Just as cheese has many ingredients we the staff have many ingredients to complete our family – the end result is great cheese from a great family”.

Be sure to join Fifth Town this weekend to help celebrate their birthday on Saturday June 26 from 1-5pm at their “Horn Trip Birthday Party”.

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Excited about water buffalo

Formally known as the Ontario Water Buffalo Company, farmers Martin Littkemann and Lori Smith introduced their herd of Water Buffalo to Ontario’s Artisan Cheese Region at their farm near Stirling in Hastings County about two years ago.  They soon became the first to milk water buffalo in Ontario and claim to own the largest milk-producing herd in North America.

Unlike Canada, water buffalo are widely found in Italy where they are part of everyday agriculture.  According to Harvest Hastings’s website, in Italy 300,000 water buffalo are milked compared to only 250,000 holsteins in Ontario.  A reason why might be that milk from water buffalo is easily digestible for people with lactose intolerance and other dairy related issues.  This is quickly being discovered here in Canada.

What really gets our attention is the fact that the milk from these animals is currently being processed into specialty cheeses including mozzarella di bufala.  If you would like to try some, on August 28th you can attend Stirling’s Water Buffalo Food Festival featuring a street meal with talented chefs serving dishes with this cheese as well as ricotta and scamorza.

For more information, you can download the poster here.  Look for our Invest in Cheese Ambassadors who will be there enjoying this cheese as well!

Contributed by Andrew Redden – Invest in Cheese Team

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