Carr Valley Cheese

This month’s featured cheese maker is Sid Cook of Carr Valley Cheese. Carr Valley is arguably Wisconsin’s most prolifically successful cheesemaking company. With over 100 different kinds of dairy products and close to 800 national and international cheesemaking awards, it is hard to view Carr Valley as anything other than incredible.

 

Founded in 1883, Carr Valley Cheese has been making handcrafted cheese for over 125 years. Now, four generations down the road, Sid has taken cheese making to a whole new level. Back in 1982, Sid Cook saw an opportunity to make something other than what was mostly produced back then and created Carr Valley’s first artisan cheese. It can be argued that his vision and desire to innovate with cheese has paved the way for future generations of cheese makers, and has helped shape the recent artisan cheese movement, as well as redefining the landscape of cheese making in the state of Wisconsin.

Carr Valley Cheese prides itself on using only locally sourced milks of the highest quality and from trusted farmers. They make close to 5 million pounds of cheese every year.

We went to meet Sid Cook and his team at their production plant in LaValle. We were shown around the factory, where Sid explained all the work that goes into making his many award winning cheeses. We were then treated to the mother of all cheese tastings, where yet again Sid walked us through each and every cheese they had for us. Rarely have we met anyone as passionate about cheese. Without a shadow of a doubt, Sid could have spent the entire day talking to us about cheese. We are extremely grateful to Sid and his team for receiving us the way they did. We are proud to have him featured as our Cheesemaker of the Month.