The Collective Creamery Cheese Podcast

Every cheesemaker needs a market for their product: a city where you can offer your wheels at farmers' markets, shops and restaurants that sell your products, distributors who truck them across the country. For Allison Lakin, cheesemaker and co-owner of Lakin's Gorges Cheese and East Forty Farm, running a small-scale creamery on the Maine coast means getting creative with how she reaches customers and markets her cheese. Stef and Sue talked with Allison about the challenges of selling and

What kind of cheese did you eat when you were young? For Benita Kasbo, Syrian-American cheesemaker and owner of Kasbo's Market, the answer is jibneh, a savory, meltable brined cheese her family made at home when she was growing up in New Jersey. These days, Benita makes it for her own family, infusing each block of curd with fruity and floral mahlab, a fragrant spice made from ground cherry stones—and, since launching her business in 2020, she's been selling it through select outlets in New

When Charuth von Beuzekom founded Dutch Girl Creamery outside Lincoln, Nebraska in the mid-2000s, there wasn't much in the way of educational resources for a beginning cheesemaker. Charuth shares the story of the grant-funded educational journey to cheesemaking locales around the world that got her started, her friendship with Sue (who was in a similar stage of her business around the same time), and how much her farm—and Nebraska's artisan cheesemaking scene—has changed in the past 20 years

Sue, Stef, and Alex are back with more of the only podcast by cheesemakers, for cheesemakers! The new season drops Monday, Oct. 20, with new episodes released every 2 weeks. We're excited to share interviews with some of our favorite American artisan cheesemakers, including Molly Semler of Von Trapp Farmstead in Vermont, Charuth von Beuzekom of Dutch Girl Creamery in Nebraska, Allison Lakin of Lakin's Gorges Cheese in Maine, and more. We're talking about everything from homesteading to sheep