Laura Chenel: Then & Now
Laura Chenel is widely credited as the brand that introduced fresh goat cheese to America, but there’s more to the story than just that. The brand is one of the pioneers of the artisanal craft cheese movement in the United States. Manon Servouse, the Marketing Director and Brand Manager for Laura Chenel and retail manager for Marin French Cheese recounts the brand’s beginnings, “Laura Chenel was from Sebastopol and her parents had a farm so she grew up around goats, and she had a bond with the animals. She originally did cheese trials with the milk from just about a dozen goats,” adding, “She was introduced to goat cheese in France and she wanted to craft cheese but she wasn’t happy with her first experiments, so she spent a full year in France and then came back in 1979 to establish her company.”
It may be hard to remember a time when goat cheese was not commonplace, but in the 1980’s domestic commercial goat cheese producers simply didn’t exist. A big break came when Laura Chenel sold her product to Alice Waters at Chez Panisse. It was used in a goat cheese salad that became a signature dish and a version of it has never left the menu. Roberta Klugman, who worked in both a retail shop where Laura Chenel’s cheese was sold and with a distributor for Laura Chenel in the 1980’s recalls trying Laura Chenel’s cheese for the first time. “Her goat cheese reigned supreme along with the Montrachet. It was one of those moments in time when you could see the California producers right up there with the French producers. It was an a ha moment. Why hadn’t we been doing it before?” But domestic goat cheese wasn’t necessarily an easy sell. Says Klugman, “Working in a specialty market we needed to educate people about goat cheese. On the distribution side there was a great enthusiasm for supporting Californian and American producers but for the most part restaurants still wanted to stay with the French products.”
As goat cheese became more popular the company garnered a long string of awards. By the mid-1990s, the company was selling more than 2 million pounds of cheese a year. The company expanded to work with a network of goat farmers who are now concentrated in California, Idaho and Nevada. In 2006 the company was sold to a French company, which has remained dedicated to the original vision of producing French style goat cheese. The company and moved into new facilities in 2011 and from 2009 through 2019 the company won 42 awards for their cheeses.
The product line up has changed over the years, some cheeses such as the Tome and Fromage Blanc are no longer in production, but in 2013 the company reintroduced the Ash-Rind Buchette which had been made years earlier but always had limited distribution. Made in the traditional style of goat cheese of the Loire Valley with a Geotrichum rind, Servouse notes that because the aged goat cheese is handcrafted and has a fragile thin rind, wide distribution has always been a challenge. But the line of fresh goat cheese has expanded in recent years. In addition to the familiar log, it includes the pillow shaped Chabis, flavored and oil marinated goat cheeses. Different levels of moisture allow for a range of products suitable for different applications including a more spreadable version sold in a tub. In 2017 the brand launched the Medallion collection with original and flavored small disks of fresh goat cheese. In 2019 the brand launched goats milk yogurt with probiotics.
Recently the company participated in a collaboration with ice cream maker Humphry Slocombe and their neighbor in the Carneros region, winemaker Domaine Carneros to make a limited edition “wine and cheese” ice cream. The company also supplied goat cheese to Smitten for goat cheese and blackberry ice cream.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created challenges for Laura Chenel. Proud of the fact that unlike other dairy producers, they did not have to dump any milk, they have continued to produce cheese despite a significant drop in their sales to restaurants which normally comprises half of their business. Along with sister companies Marin French Cheese and St. Benoit Creamery they launched the North Bay Creameries website, selling direct to consumers and shipping all over the country. The brand donated 6% of their March through May sales to the California Restaurant Association Foundation’s Restaurant Cares program.