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Small Creamery With Big Plans

Morrisville, Vermont - August 24, 2009

Vermont's artisan cheese market is getting more crowded all the time. We checked out one of the newest and smallest creameries in the state.

"So this is the cheese making room. It's a pretty small scale operation," said Stan Biasini of Mount Mansfield Creamery

His cheese making room doesn't look like much. Other than a few cheese baskets, a couple of milk pails and one large vat, nothing about this room screams up-and-coming business.

But looks aren't everything.

"I want to do recipes that I enjoy eating, I want to do recipes that no one else - no other Vermont cheese makers are doing," said Biasini

After making cheese at home for years, Biasini officially opened Mount Mansfield Creamery on June 4th.

He's starting small, making about 420 pounds per month.

Biasini has three carefully crafted recipes, a havarti, a soft cow's milk cheese and a tomme called the Chin Clip.

All the cheeses are named after trails or lifts on Mount Mansfield.

"All of our cheese are raw milk products, not pasteurized, so we have to age them a minimum of 60 days," he said.

All of the milk comes from cows owned by Biasini's wife. Even though the creamery just opened it carries quite a bit of history. The original Mount Mansfield Creamery opened in Stowe in 1888, and operated out of buildings owned by Biasini's wife's family. The building that houses the new operation was once the United Farmer's Creamery.

It's a lot of history, but Biasini isn't letting that get to him.

"Just exploring and we're so small scale in that we make 32 to 36 pounds of cheese per day so we can experiment and don't have to worry about ruining thousands of gallons of milk. And a it's just a lot of fun," he said.

Fun that has turned into a success.

People in the community are excited that the Mount Mansfield Creamery name is back, and even more exited to have a cheese maker right in their backyards. Mount Mansfield cheeses are sold in less than a handful of businesses in the Morrisville, Stowe area, but Biasini is already selling out.

"Like to age it more, for 90 days or more, but because of the demand that we've had at 60 days we've allowed them to go," he said.

The creamery is so new, it's working out of a building that's still under renovation, but Stan is already looking to the future. He says he does want to expand the operation and make his batches a little bit larger, but he doesn't want to get so big that he loses his local artisan flare.

Bianca Slota - WCAX News