Great Cheesemakers of the South: Sequatchie Cove Creamery

Editor’s note: We first learned about Sequatchie Cove Creamery in a story about the Great Cheeses and Cheesemakers of the South. Today contributor Amy Beth Wright shares an interview with the cheesemakers.

In the past two years, Nathan and Padgett Arnold, founders of Sequatchie Cove Creamery in southeast Tennessee, have gone from, as Padgett Arnold describes, “having to be scrappy, looking to move cheese here or there,” to contracting their cheeses out months in advance. Sequatchie Cove’s Creamery’s Shakerag Blue, which is wrapped in fig leaves that have been soaked in Chattanooga Whiskey is an award-winner. (Other flagship cheeses include Cumberland, which is a natural-rind Tomme, Coppinger, a semi-soft washed-rind cheese with a layer of vegetable ash in the center, and Walden, a quick-pasteurized cheese that’s aged for 30 days.)

The pandemic was a critical time of metamorphosis, where difficult decisions led to survival and growth. Padgett Arnold shares Sequatchie Cove’s Creamery’s origin story and how the Arnolds’ goals are evolving.

What led you to begin making cheese?

In 2000, we became the first farm managers of Crabtree Farm in Chattanooga and lived there for a couple of seasons. We knew Bill and Miriam Keener of Sequatchie Cove Farm because, back in the late 1990s, if you were trying to be an organic farmer, just a handful of people worked that way. Nathan, who makes all of our cheeses, developed a diversified CSA at the Keener’s farm—fruit, vegetables, animals. He became really interested in working with the cows in particular in 2004. We all went to Italy for Terra Madre, an annual slow food conference, where the seed was planted for the cheese. We were inspired by traditional French Alpine cheeses, and wanted to figure out how to make a value-added product on grass that would express itself in a unique way, something at the peak of the agricultural pyramid, so to speak.

What were some pivotal early moments?

In 2005 and 2006, Nathan traveled to France, Vermont, Canada, and Wisconsin. We met with consultants and developed the creamery facility with help from Miriam Keener’s dad, who is a retired engineer. We put it all together between 2007 and 2009 and got our license in March of 2010. We won first place in our category at the American Cheese Society conference in 2012. We had kinks to work out, but that was a big deal.

We came up with Walden, a Reblochon-style quick-pasteurized cheese, in 2019 and planned to launch it in 2020—that was a subdued launch. It's a smaller seven-ounce format that’s retail ready and designed for a bigger marketplace. It's got a longer shelf life, we can sell it younger, and we distribute it all over the country. Everything else we make is cut and wrapped, and there are limits to where it can be sold. Now, 90% of our cheese goes through a distributor.

What have been some challenges, in growing Sequatchie Cove Creamery?

We had two groups of cows, starting from 2009. One group gave birth in the spring and another in the fall, so we could have a year-round milk supply. Each produced milk for about ten months and then took two months off. Then they’d be bred and start all over again. In 2019, we went back to seasonal cheese-making and let the fall group go. Then 2020 happened. Because we weren't spending money to make cheese all winter, we survived.

The thing is, when you make fresh cheeses, you have to use the milk when it's coming. That's the tradeoff between aged cheeses and fresh cheeses. In 2020, all of our retail contracts were put on hold. It felt like misfortune was doubling down on us. We quit making the quick-pasteurized Walden and made aged cheeses so we could put the milk somewhere. Also because of that, we survived. Now we can't make enough cheese. It happened seemingly overnight that we went from one extreme to another.

The labor shortage in 2021 was the point when we sold our herd. Our herd manager moved away, and a lack of work-life balance in general followed, for everybody. We couldn’t create any sort of business model and produce the milk as we’d been. We're trying something different, to create balance and control. We're sourcing the best grass milk we’ve found in this region, and we are happy with the results.

How has sourcing milk impacted the flavor and quality of the cheese?

When you're using a raw material that is literally changing all the time, you're making adjustments to create something that comes out as consistent as possible to the highest quality standard. That takes time, understanding, and doing it. We just had a tasting between three batches of Cumberland, two from cows grazed on Georgia grass, and one from a local farm. One uses more silage and fermented feeds, which is okay for a cheese that's not aged for too long. You can have issues with gas formation, and the wheels can pop open and crack. That’s why we want milk that's produced on grass—that’s just the best type of milk for making cheese. You can see it, as well. Cheeses are a pale golden color when beta carotene in the grass transfers through the milk.

With our own milk, it was even more variable, as with a small herd any variation is amplified. In larger production, if one cow is an outlier, you don't notice it as much. In making cheeses over the years, we see differences—that the nature of it. That's what we celebrate as special. But we've also dialed in to what we like the best. We understand how we can achieve that more directly versus than when we were just beginning, by thinking about it as an art form.

Does the change affect the cheese’s flavor profiles?

In aging and flavor development, there’s going to be more depth and character. That's what we want and that's what we've always tried to do. When a cow has grazed during the height of spring, cheeses are grassy, sharp, bright, and lively; other tasting notes can include sweet hay, dark chocolate, and smoke.

What goals or challenges are on the horizon?

Now, we make 1,000-liter batches, five days a week. With a vat and pasteurizer that's a 2,000-liter capacity, we can make twice as much cheese. That's where we're headed—we’re trying to get there. Equipment is costly, so we have to grow on a scale that's appropriate and cost-effective. That’s why we made the big decision last year to do something else. Two years ago, we thought, if we can make it to June, maybe we’ll survive. We made it through that year and since March of 2021, it hasn’t slowed down. When we double the capacity of cheese per batch, the challenge will be, can we sell that much? We've never been in this position before.

We would very much love to see our business grow to the point where we are an attractive model for an investor to get involved, as we see that being the only way we will be able to acquire a bigger parcel of land where we can re-establish our herd and produce our own milk again, even for a portion of the cheeses we make. Having a milking herd again is a part of our 10-year vision as a company.

In terms of our social media presence, it's important to me for it to be authentic and we're getting better at telling our story. It's particularly fun right now because a lot of people are posting about us; staying connected and seeing whose got the cheese and whose excited about it is absolute fun for me.

Which other cheese makers and creameries been influential?

There are really big mentors. Jasper Hill is one, and Meadow Creek Dairy in Virginia, as well as cheesemakers in Vermont, and Sweet Grass Dairy in Georgia. In the U.S., cheesemaking is a big subculture. It's a community and there's a supportive nature around it. There's a lot of cooperation, mentorship, and working together. And that's another reason why we still exist.