I took some time today to update the website and realized that it was last August that I last wrote on the blog. Hmm arn't blogs to be updated more frequently? Weeellllll..... We'll leave that one to be debated. But if you are missing the interaction like us on Facebook and get updates there. So what has happened between then and now. Wow lots. We are in the final stages of a remodel to the creamery, we now have the first cheese shops west of the Mississippi carrying the cheese and we have won our first major award for the cheese. Phew and I'm still somewhat sane.

First the remodel. As we have continued to grow and with the ever present presence of FDA into all food producers lives we decided to remodel the plant to make the process more efficent and hopefully meet expectations. We're trying to proactive not reactive here. We covered in the walk behind the creamery and attached that to the covered walk infront of the aging rooms. This room will become the utility room, where the boiler will live. Hopefully this will help keep some of the heat out of the creamery and also will free up the current utility room to be turned into a packing room and allow for more lab/paper work area. We are down to moving the boiler at the current moment. This entails cutting a hole into the wall of the creamery to move the boiler. The hole will then be filled in as a doublehinged door. After that is done then it's moving some tables around, putting some washboard on the wall and cleaning up everything, walls, ceiling, equipment, etc. All this had to be done before the beginning of March. Things are progressing right on schedule and we should be ready to go when the calves hit the ground sometime around the middle of March.

Now for the big news! Canal Junction Cheese has recieved a 2012 Good Food Award for their Charloe cheese. We here are very humbled by this. I took the oppurtuinty to go out to San Francisco to recieve the award. While out there I got the grand tour of Cowgirl Creamery thanks to a wonderful Debra Dickerson, whom I met almost 3 years ago at the American Cheese Society annual conference when it was in Seattle. I took a day extra from the award ceremony and market place to see the area. I spent a day out at Point Reyes and surrounding areas. Then on Firday evening the Good Food Award ceremony took place and afterwards there was a winners tasting. On Saturday all the winners were offered the chance to participate in the marketplace. It was 8 hours of nonstop sampling, talking, and selling cheese, and that was just one kind of cheese! That evening I was invited to the Cowgirls Creamerys annual pre Fancy Food Show cheesemakers, mongers, lovers party. During which I had the oppurtunity to meet great cheesemakers, mongers, and general all around great people. From that weekend Canal Junction cheese is now available in 3 new locations, all of which are west of the Mississippi.

Well I better keep moving. I need to get ready for a talk tomorrow with Edible Columbus and then for The Hills Markets, Ohio's Sweet Hearts tasting.

Hope to see you around,

Brian