Big news ahead for a cheesemaker who got a dairy business expansion grant this year. Landmark Creamery will be moving into its own cheese production space this year. They have been previously renting space for nearly a decade.
Anna Landmark is the co-owner, cheesemaker and butter maker at Landmark Creamery. She says this grant from the Dairy Business Innovation Alliance (DBIA) is helping foster growth.
“This grant was amazing,” says Landmark. “We’re getting $100,000 to basically help us with the purchase of a new cheese plant for us. So we’re going to be using that to buy some new equipment that we need in order to be able to make our cheeses in this new factory. It will also help us with a lot of marketing and some branding costs.”
This new plant will help Landmark to expand production of their sheep milk cheeses as well as grow into cow milk cheeses. They will be able to quadruple their production if not more. They are hoping to be up and running by the end of the summer.
This is not the only good news she has to share. A previous grant from DBIA assisted Landmark’s plans to make butter. A short walk from Landmark Creamery’s aging caves and retail store in Paoli is Seven Acre Dairy Company. This is a new micro dairy, restaurant and boutique hotel within a historic cheese plant. This is where Landmark will be making artisan butter beginning this summer. There’s a viewing window so you can watch how it’s done.
Landmark adds, “The last grant that we got from DBIA was for $50,000, and that allowed us to purchase some equipment for expanding into butter production.”
Landmark was able to purchase a 100 gallon batch pasteurizer that they’ll be using to make small batches of butter. She says they are waiting for some caps and refrigerant to charge up the condenser and then they’ll be able to get going with production. Once up and running, Landmark will be making about 400 pounds of butter per batch and will have the capacity to do two to three batches of butter a week.
“We will be doing some pure sweet cream butter, which is your very traditional pure butter flavor that you would expect with a butter that you get from the store,” explains Landmark. “We’ll also be making some cultured butter which will taste a bit more like yogurt.”
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