Baetje Farms Goat Dairy is located on a historic farm in Bloomsdale, Mo., about 50 miles south of St. Louis and on the edge of the Mark Twain National Forest.
The dairy is owned by Steve and Veronica Baetje, who have been tending goats and making cheese for more than 10 years.
“We’ve had goats since 1998, but started commercially processing cheese in 2007,” said Steve Baetje. “We were educated at the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese; they had a lot of courses specifically for making different cheeses. They would bring cheesemakers from around the world there to teach what they know about different cheeses. We also went to the Diary Institute at River falls in Wisconsin and used a couple consultants. Of course there’s just a lot of self-educating and trial and error and things like that. A lot of knowledge and learning had to be gained before we started.”
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