[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 54 (Tuesday, March 28, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2043-S2044]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
RECOGNIZING JASPER HILL FARM
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, as in so many rural States, small
businesses make up the backbone of Vermont's economy and communities.
Countless Vermont businesses develop and manufacture a wide array of
products, ranging from our thriving craft beer industry to Vermont-made
peanut butter, candles, chocolates, and cheeses. I would like to take
this opportunity to recognize one of Vermont's outstanding small
businesses, Jasper Hill Farm. A small, rural creamery in the Northeast
Kingdom, Jasper Hill Farm exemplifies our State's essential balance of
innovation and tradition. Andy and Mateo Kehler have worked for more
than 15 years to make the best cheese possible, all while remaining
true to their Vermont roots.
Now an award-winning artisan cheese business, Jasper Hill Farm began
two decades ago when the brothers Kehler pooled their resources to buy
a small farm in rural Greensboro, VT. They decided to try a new model
of small-scale, value-added dairy farming that would transform raw milk
into a more valuable product before leaving the farm. To do so, Mateo
and Andy built a creamery with space to age cheese next door to the
barn. After 5 years of hard work, the brothers finally had their first
marketable cheese.
What started as a few racks of cheese with a couple of direct
customers quickly expanded, as did the farm's notoriety. Within 3
years, Jasper Hill Farm took home ``Best of Show'' at the American
Cheese Society Conference. Despite their hard-earned success, Andy and
Mateo continued with their vision of increasing access to value-added
production for all interested farmers. They took new measures to create
opportunities for community success, opening their space to other
cheesemakers. Now, the creamery is home not only to numerous cheese
caves, but to a modern laboratory where scientists work to create
cheese starter cultures. Years of research have enabled the creation of
better cheese, and Jasper Hill Farm has become a magnet for other
artisan cheesemakers along the way.
Andy and Mateo have created an outstanding business that is rooted in
the Vermont values of hard work and perseverance, while emphasizing the
importance of community. Their efforts to reinvigorate the State's
dairy industry have contributed to our State's identity and culture, as
well as our agricultural traditions. I am proud to feature the work of
Jasper Hill Farm at our annual Taste of Vermont event, and I look
forward to seeing what their future brings.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a New York Times article
about Jasper Hill Farm be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the New York Times, Feb. 6, 2017]
Small Cheese Makers Invest in a Stinky Science
(By Larissa Zimberoff)
Greensboro, VT--There's no sign announcing that you've
arrived at Jasper Hill Farm, a creamery in the Northeast
Kingdom, as Vermonters call that end of their state, but you
can't miss it. The main barn is painted midnight blue with a
giant cheese moon and cows floating happily in space. Blasted
into the hillside is a concrete bunker with seven cheese
caves radiating from a central core.
There's one other surprising detail: a modern two-room
laboratory filled with microbiology equipment and staffed
with scientists.
Why does a small, rural creamery invest in technology for
what has long been a low-tech product? Because it doesn't
have 500 years to learn what its European counterparts
already know: the biological intricacies of how to make the
best cheese in a particular place. And because the same
diversity of microbial cultures is not available in North
America.
``Building a lab might seem extravagant or of questionable
value, but what we get as a business over two, three, four
generations--it's a no-brainer,'' said Mateo Kehler, who owns
the farm with his brother, Andy.
The making of cheese depends on the contribution of myriad
microbial actors. Both yeast and bacteria are components of
the starter cultures that help turn milk into solids, and
those solids into cheeses with distinctive aromas, flavors
and textures that are hard to resist. The interplay of these
species, while understood in a basic sense, is now receiving
renewed scientific scrutiny and appreciation in the United
States.
Unlike their peers in Europe, who benefit from centuries of
tradition and from government support for research, American
farmstead cheese makers have typically gone it alone. Starter
cultures are a particularly vexing ingredient. The only three
domestic suppliers, including DuPont and Cargill, are
multinational corporations better known for chemicals, which
has limited the number of available cultures and caused
discomfort in a field that strives for individuality.
But now several small cheese producers are working with
scientists to develop their own starters and use microbiology
to create better cheeses.
Murray's Cheese is working with Rockefeller University to
learn more about the microflora in its cheese caves in Long
Island City, Queens. Uplands Cheese Company is working with
the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin
to create a new soft cheese, its first in seven years.
But perhaps none have taken on cheese science as rigorously
as Jasper Hill. Its laboratory, opened in 2013, has become a
hub for other cheese makers seeking help and insight.
When the Kehler brothers began making cheese in 2003, their
aim was to invigorate the local dairy industry, which was,
and still is, struggling. They started on their path to
applied science in 2010, when Rachel Dutton,
[[Page S2044]]
a Harvard scientist, decided to use cheese as a model to
research how small microbial communities interact; she
focused on the composition of cheese rinds.
Her first contact in the cheese business was Mateo Kehler,
who taught her to make cheese and then helped her reach out
to more than 100 other producers for samples. The response
was overwhelming. ``I don't think she realized how excited
the artisan cheese industry was going to be,'' Mr. Kehler
said.
In 2014, Dr. Dutton published her findings in the journal
Cell. Working with Benjamin Wolfe, a postdoctoral researcher,
she reported that the environment (cows, cheese caves,
pastures) and methods (washing, salting, managing acidity)
were as important to the development of cheese rinds, if not
more so, than the ingredients.
This was a revelation. With this new scientific proof in
hand, the Kehlers stopped adding starter cultures to
Winnimere, one of their most popular raw-milk cheeses. ``What
we were adding wasn't growing, and when we stopped adding
that, the cheese ripened more gracefully and deliciously,''
Mateo Kehler said.
Their pasteurized cheeses, though, still needed starters
because pasteurization kills bacteria both good and bad for
cheese. So they began making starter cultures from bacteria
in their own milk supply.
Besides ending their reliance on big business, this has
allowed the brothers to create a cheese that can come only
from a singular place: Greensboro, Vt.
An on-site laboratory has its perks. In addition to having
staff members who deeply understand microbiology, Jasper Hill
Farm has become a magnet for researchers near and far. Now
working there are an engineering intern from Brittany,
France; a local microbiologist; and Panos C. Lekkas, a food
microbiologist who has investigated the best ways to feed,
tend and milk a cow for cheese production.
Dr. Lekkas, who was hired in November to work full time at
Jasper Hill, collaborates with Dr. Dutton, now at the
University of California, San Diego, and with Dr. Wolfe, who
leads a microbiology laboratory at Tufts University.
In addition to helping improve food safety procedures at
the 85-person Jasper Hill Farm, Dr. Lekkas is overseeing the
development of a new cheese--a French Camembert style that
for now the team is calling Wild Moses.
Dr. Lekkas was told that it takes eight months to bring a
new cheese to market. ``Mateo wants me to do it in three,''
he said. With science comes speed.
In order to make a soft pasteurized cheese that does not
rely on corporate additives, the scientists sampled 300
promising strains of yeast and bacteria, all pulled from milk
from Jasper Hill's own 250 cows.
What makes a homegrown starter promising? Sometimes it's
the color of the microbes in a petri dish, but smell, too,
can be telling. The group sniffed the samples and noted any
pleasing aromas: Play-Doh, Concord grapes, tomato juice,
clams, Kraft American Singles. Dr. Wolfe's lab ran a full
genomic sequencing on the 15 top contenders, which will
provide a blueprint for understanding how these strains are
related to, or differ from, other cultures in the cheese
world.
Making funky cheese is tricky, even for scientists. ``There
are subtle variations in flavor and aroma that you perceive
in cheese,'' Dr. Wolfe said. ``We want to understand what
drives that variation.'' With Dr. Wolfe's genomic data, the
team can track the microbes through the entire cheese-making
process.
In November, the first batch of cheese was produced using
five strains from the original 15 parent cultures--two yeast-
based and three bacterial. New batches are being made every
two weeks using different combinations, and every 10 days,
each will be tasted to see whether it is on target for the
``deliciousness factor,'' Jasper Hill's zero-to-10 grading
system.
Seven or above is pretty good. Eight is out of this world.
Tens are likely to be bestowed only outside the farm: Jasper
Hill's Harbison cheese recently took Super Gold at the World
Cheese Awards in Spain.
``I will be happy with a seven,'' Dr. Lekkas said.
____________________