How Board At Home is Bringing Artisan Cheeses To the Masses

The past year has seen cheesemakers around the world struggle to keep their operations afloat. But amidst many stories of strife and isolation, an unlikely collaboration between one of California’s largest commercial creameries and some of the state’s smallest artisan cheesemakers serves as a model of ingenuity, generosity and community: Board at Home.

Ray Rumiano

The ingeniously monikered Board at Home is the result of a huge, mass market cheese manufacturer lending a hand to dozens of small independent makers, helping them generate cash flow and invaluable public awareness. “It sounds kind of weird,” says founder Ray Rumiano, “But for whatever reason, I really do think that the cheese world attracts genuinely nice people.”

Case in point: Rumiano himself. In addition to overseeing Board at Home, which began curating and shipping artfully arranged assortments of limited production California cheeses and charcuterie during the pandemic, Rumiano co-owns his family’s business which dates back to 1919. His immigrant great grandfather started out making and selling dry jack cheese which served as a local stand in for the likes of parmesan and pecorino, sorely missed by expat Italians in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Over the intervening century-plus, the Rumiano Cheese Company has grown into a huge operation, manufacturing and shipping endless tons of cheese—jack, cheddar, mozzarella, gouda—to groceries and delicatessens nationwide. But while Ray Rumiano has, by necessity, become an expert in mass production and mass appeal, he has also become a true devotee of artisanal cheeses and their makers.

Small family farms and creameries that harken back to his own company’s origins have become a source of inspiration and delight for Rumiano, ultimately leading him to become the rare representative of what he jokingly refers to as “Big Cheese” on the volunteer board of the craft-focused non-profit California Artisanal Cheese Guild.

In a normal year, the guild focuses on hosting and participating in educational forums to promote the state’s impressive range of cheesemaking operations, but when the pandemic hit, it became a source of commiseration, solace and mutual support for many in the community. That’s when Ray Rumiano came up with the notion of applying his company’s expertise in packing and shipping with the delectable, limited production cheeses produced by the guild’s more typical small members.

Board at Home Cheesemakers

Under the newly minted aegis of Board at Home, Rumiano Cheese began purchasing substantial quantities of product from guild members who normally have extremely limited distribution, including Beehive Cheese, Bellwether Farms, Bohemian Creamery, Cypress Grove, Laura Chenel, Nicasio Valley Cheese Co., Stuyt Dairy Farmstead Cheese Co., Tomales Farmstead Creamery, Valley Ford Cheese & Creamery, and Wm. Cofield Cheesemakers. Rumiano’s team then divvies these bulk orders into smaller portions and combines them, accompanied with other artisanal California foodstuffs—charcuterie, crackers, nuts, honey—in elegantly arranged and thoughtfully themed cheeseboards and sells them for home delivery and corporate gifting nationwide.

Until now, some of these cheeses have rarely if ever been available in large parts of the country. Even in California, many could typically only be found together at specialty retailers or in high-end restaurants’ cheese courses.

“People get our cheese in a Board at Home delivery,” says Keith Adams of Wm. Cofield Cheesemakers in Sebastapol, CA, “and they start to do a little research. 90% of our cheese has always been sold in California, but we’ve had orders from out of state because people discovered us through Board at Home. Anything new avenues we can find to get exposure is always good, but it has been especially valuable during the pandemic. Board at Home has made several orders of 100-500 pre-cut pieces for their collections.”

“We only have one distributor and he hasn’t ordered anything since last February,” says Anastasia Stuyt whose family’s Stuyt Dairy Farmstead Cheese Company was founded in the Central Valley town of Escalon just six years ago after her father, a Dutch immigrant, found himself consistently frustrated by the gouda-style cheeses he found in the U.S.

“Otherwise, it’s just self-distribution very locally. In the summers, we do farmers markets. But that business was really down in 2020 too,” Stuyt explains, having learned just how precarious a hobby-turned-business can become from a financial perspective. “If my father knew six years ago how this would go, I’m not sure he would have made the investment. But Board at Home bought two whole weeks of production from us over the past six months. That really makes a difference.”

In addition to supporting small cheesemakers and other California food artisans, Board at Home contributes 5% of all proceeds to the LEE Initiative, which provides emergency assistance to independent restaurants and their workers.

The Future of Board at Home

Ray Rumiano says that he plans on continuing to operate Board at Home and support small California cheesemakers for the forseeable future, even beyond the pandemic’s end. Keith Adams of Wm. Cofield Cheesemakers is grateful, but unsurprised at this corporate largesse. “People in the cheese world,” he says, echoing Rumiano’s own thoughts, “are kind and thoughtful and generous. Really generous humans.”