Contributed by Karin Desveaux-Potters, EDO, Gastronomy Cluster

Happy Birthday, Fifth Town!

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”.