How a Missouri Farmer Found Success as a Maker of Sheep’s Milk Cheese

Missouri is home to several outstanding creameries including Green Dirt Farm, a sheep’s milk farmstead operation that places a high value on animal welfare, sustainability, and soil health. Sarah Hoffman transitioned from physician in Seattle and Kansas City to sheep farmer and founder of the Certified Animal Welfare dairy based in Weston, a small town northwest of Kansas City.

Sarah Hoffman photo credit Lisa Waterman Gray

Green Dirt Farm Background

Hoffman envisioned a sustainable sheep dairy making wholesome, delicious products for her customers. Fresh air and wide-open spaces would also enrich her young children’s lives as she grew her new business. “I had the perfect scientific background for cheese-making,” Hoffman says. “A microbiology and chemistry foundation. [As I was growing up] my aunt in New Jersey had a cheese shop, and I worked there in the summer. We also went to the Fancy Food Show together, in San Francisco.” But raising sheep and making cheese was a lot harder than Hoffman anticipated. In addition to self-study, she attended multi-day workshops at the University of Wisconsin and Oregon State University. She also attended an annual conference for the American Cheese Society, which provided terrific networking opportunities. Meeting French cheesemakers, thanks to introductions from friends who lived there, provided additional inspiration.

The name that Hoffman chose for her farm reflects her commitment to providing carefully tended grassy pastures, and healthy soil, for sheep grazing. After six years of cheese-making and creating a supportive business structure, 2008 was the farm’s first year of commercial cheese production. 

Green Dirt Farm sheep photo credit Lisa Waterman Gray

Sheep’s Milk Cheese in the US

“The artisan cheese industry didn’t really begin in the U.S. until the 1970s,” Hoffman says. “In the early 1990s, sheep cheese came to the U.S. market. So, there was a niche for sheep milk cheese.” Sourcing sheep’s milk versus cow’s milk presents its own set of challenges. A cow produces seven to 10 gallons of milk per day. On the other hand, U.S. sheep are small animals that only produce about three-quarters of a gallon per day. As a result, the cost of sheep milk is much higher. “Sheep only milk about 200 days per year versus cows, which milk daily. But sheep milk has almost twice the concentrated milk solids of cow milk,” Hoffman says. “It yields 17 to 18 percent milk solids, versus cow milk, at 10 percent.” The company won its first award one year after opening, for signature Bossa cheese. Since then, Green Dirt Farm cheeses have won dozens of awards. And, in 2021, Food and Wine listed this dairy farm among the nation’s top 50 U.S. cheesemakers.

Green Dirt Farm Creamery photo credit Lisa Waterman Gray

Green Dirt Farm Today

Today the farm encompasses 150 acres, with a sheep barn, a milking parlor, a cheese kitchen that visitors may tour, and four cheese aging rooms with various temperatures and moisture levels. There are 200 animals, with approximately 100 milkings, at any given time.  

Fifteen full-time employees, plus seasonal and part-time workers, keep things going. “We’re about 80-85 percent female and I think they’re drawn to the collaborative vibe here,” Hoffman says. 

Cheese production has increased ten-fold since the farm began and there’s no sign of things slowing down. Green Dirt Farm Creamery opened in 2016. “We were busting at the seams at the farm, and we only had satellite Internet there,” Hoffman says. “The shop provides more space and reliable Internet.”

Green Dirt Farm cheese board photo credit Lisa Waterman Gray

Food & Drink Collaborations

Green Dirt Farm frequently collaborates with other food and beverage professionals. In fact, local TerraVox winery has had a tasting counter inside the Creamery since it opened. Customers can savor wine and charcuterie boards indoors or on outdoor picnic tables. During a recent visit, locally made products included MAPS Chocolate bars that incorporated the dairy’s feta cheese, plus local Messner Bee Products, KC Cattle Company ground wagyu beef, and KC Canning jams. 

The creamery recently contributed cheese and expertise to a Cheese and Beer Pairing at East Forty Brewing in Blue Springs, Missouri. But most events take place at the farm. 

Onsite dinners and cheese tastings began in 2007. “We happened to have a guy on our staff – Tony Glamcevski – who wanted to get closer to where food comes from, as a farm laborer,” Hoffman says. “He also knew a lot of chefs and suggested having an Open House near the cheese kitchen as a way to reach them. They could make whatever they wanted with our products, and it was a great way for us to network, too.” 

Tickets for 2022 Farm Table Dinners and Cheese Tasting Events went on sale on March 31 and they are selling briskly. Scheduled between Mother’s Day and mid-October, they involve a wide array of chefs and beverage producers. Think wine, beer, or spirits makers and importers, chefs known for Thai, farm-to-table, or charcuterie expertise, and even a chocolate maker. 

Hoffman clearly loves what she does. From daily farm operations to awards and national recognition, Green Dirt Farm is not only her business but her passion project.