BARRE – If you’ve won over Martha Stewart, you’ve got to be doing something right. Add to that accolades from Oprah, the judges from the New York Fancy Food Show and the World Championship Cheese Contest, and it’s safe to say Vermont Butter & Cheese has world-class products.
Vermont Butter & Cheese products – and co-owner Allison Hooper’s book, “In a Cheesemaker’s Kitchen” – are highly regarded in the culinary world, and created right in Barre’s backyard in the Wilson Industrial Park in Websterville. From central Vermont, they make their way to store shelves and restaurants as far away as California. The butter and cheeses show up on national television as well as on plates in restaurants such as Citronelle in Washington, D.C. and at a wine pairing event at the Smithsonian.
While the dairy products are gathering laurels from around the country, the $10 million business is supporting farmers and employees here in Vermont. Vermont Butter & Cheese now buys goat milk from 19 farms, all except one of which solely sell their milk to the company (and three more farms are ready to start shipping milk). The farms directly employ 34 people, including one woman, “goat nanny” Beth Pratt, whose job it is to work with the farms to ensure healthy goats, good dairy product and to work on ways to make the farms more profitable.
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