SPRING
Handcrafted. Family. Farmstead.
CRAVE BROTHERS FARMSTEAD CHEESE
something
to
Handcrafted. Family. Farmstead.
something something
to
C E L E B R A T E
PROUD PRODUCERS OF
AWARDWINNING CHEESE
& GREEN ENERGY
CraveCheese.com
"We do ours a little differently than
others," says Madeleine Coggins, trade
marketing associate for Laura Chenel's
Chevre in Sonoma. The creamery's plain
goat cheese logs are sliced and dried
on racks, then packed in tubs with the
marinade. The drying step helps the slices
stay separate in the marinade, says Coggins.
The company has two main
competitors in the marinated-cheese
niche: the Australian import Meredith
Dairy and the California-based Chevoo,
whose founder is Australian. The shared
origins are no coincidence; oil-marinated
cheese is huge in Australia. Chevoo
founder Gerard Tuck recalls 15 to 20
different marinated cheese producers
battling for shelf space in Australia when
he moved his young family to California
eight years ago. Small wonder that Tuck
landed on marinated cheese when he
decided to launch a business in the U.S.,
where the product hardly existed.
Chevoo sold its first jar in late 2015.
Today, the company employs 30 people
and produces oil-marinated goat cheese in
six flavors, using trendy ingredients like
Urfa chili, smoked salt, and fennel pollen.
"The step we don't do is milk-to-curd,"
says Tuck. Instead, the company buys
goat curd, adds seasonings, extrudes the
mix into cubes, and packs the cubes in
jars with herb- and spice-infused oil. In
2019, the last year the American Cheese
Society held a competition, Chevoo all but
swept the marinated goat cheese category,
receiving five of the six ribbons awarded.
Unlike its competitors, Chevoo
focuses almost exclusively on retail
sales, which proved fortunate when
the pandemic hit. Consumers may have
stopped entertaining at home but they
dived deep into elaborate cheese boards,
with marinated cheese an easy and
photogenic addition. "Our Instagram
followers went up 2-½ times in 2020,"
says Tuck, "and that was largely driven
by people wanting to post their cheese
boards. It was insane."
Chevoo rival Meredith Dairy, the
category leader in Australia, has had
"astronomical" growth over its decade
PHOTO JANET FLETCHER/PLANET CHEESE
Meredith Dairy Sheep
& Goat Cheese
