Cheese Shops We Love: Sweet Freedom Cheese

Location

8th St. Market

801 SE 8th St. Ste. 1, Bentonville, AR

When Jessica Keahey, “recovering” engineer turned cheese professional and owner of Arkansas’s Sweet Freedom Cheese envisioned bringing artisanal cheese to the northwest corner of her state, she originally assumed she’d have to make the cheese first. “I actually entered the cheese world with the hopes of being an artisan cheese maker, and that — boy howdy — is super hard,” she says. “The business plan that I wrote many years ago…it’s always an evolution, but step one was ‘make cheese’ and step two was ‘sell cheese.’”

While shadowing a friend on the retail end of cheese, simply to gain some knowledge and experience before she planned to apply her manufacturing skills to cheesemaking, she had the epiphany that with the right guidance, she could skip ahead to the selling of cheese. Keahey founded Sweet Freedom Cheese in Bentonville in 2013, eventually opening a brick-and-mortar location in 2018, the first, independent, cut-to-order cheese shop in Arkansas.

Bringing Artisanal Cheese to Arkansas

In Arkansas, there’s not a lot of cheese makers here,” explains Keahey. “We’re just not a dairying state.” But a love of cooking and fermenting led her to believe that she could provide a needed, epicurean corner in the form of a cut-to-order cheese shop for like-minded Arkansans. “There’s a lot of difficulty,” she says, “because we’re creating distribution networks of our own, and we’re educating consumers kind of on our own.”

It bears mentioning that Bentonville, where Sweet Freedom is located, is far from Arkansas’s largest city. About 9th in size by population, it has only about a quarter of the residents of Little Rock, and its main claim to fame is as the birthplace of Walmart. However, “Really intriguing culinary things have been popping up here,” says Keahey, and the greater metropolitan area population she estimates to be about half a million citizens. “There’s certainly people who drive two or three hours to come to our shop,” she says, “which we’re always just really humbled by.”

Sweet Freedom Social Impact

From its inception, one of Sweet Freedom’s and Keahey’s main tenets was serving the community, not only in its artisanal cheese needs, but by leveraging the business to provide support to various parts of the community in whatever ways it could. Sweet Freedom’s website includes a tab for Social Impact, (boldly entitled “A Force for Gouda”) which outlines this mission. “I wanted to create a really wonderful culture where we’re able to do things in the community and reach the community,” says Keahey, “versus just trying to make a buck.”

During the pandemic Sweet Freedom offered provisions to health care workers, displaced workers, restaurants that were able to stay open, and underserved members of the community. Additionally, the business provides ongoing donations to local food banks, as well as sponsors in-store events whose proceeds go to local nonprofits. Keahey also partners with the University of Arkansas and the Midwest Dairy Association to offer dairy and cheese science education. “Have cheese show, will travel,” says Keahey. And if that all weren’t enough, Sweet Freedom is also a no-waste facility.

The Store

One of Bentonville’s aforementioned intriguing culinary offerings is the market itself where Sweet Freedom exists. Bentonville’s 8th St. Market is “a fun kind of culinary hub,” says Keahey, with numerous food and beverage businesses including Bike Rack Brewing Company, Markham & Fitz Chocolate Makers, and Brightwater: A Center for the Study of Food. Sweet Freedom’s counter is located within the South Market Food Hall, whose other counter-service eateries and food trucks share a centralized seating area.

Top Selling Cheese

Artikaas Hay There Truffle Gouda

Studded with Italian black summer truffles, Hay There is a raw cow’s milk, 60-day aged gouda from The Netherlands. “My husband jokes that ‘truffle doesn’t ask for consent,’” says Keahey. “But almost from day one, this has been our biggest seller.” A young cheese, as far as many goudas go, Hay There “is very bold, extremely buttery, and meltable,” says Keahey. “You could enjoy it with a glass of strong cabernet, or it would be beautiful melted into things in smaller quantities for that additional boost of flavor.”

Fromager d’Affinois

A hallmark yet approachable bloomy rind, Fromager d’Affinois is a classic, pasteurized cow’s milk, double-cream cheese from France. “It’s a beautiful soft ripened cheese to get people interested in that style,” says Keahey. “It’s kind of nice to be able to introduce people to something that is kind of silky, and sexy, and really agreeable,” she says, as opposed to the industrial bries that often have thick, chewy rinds. “It feels kind of French and fancy,” she says, “and it’s a good jumping off point for people to be able to branch out from there.”

Barbers 1833 Vintage Reserve Cheddar

“When we first opened, we had just a handful of cheddars,” says Keahey, “and boy, that was a mistake. We could probably have half of our case be gouda and cheddar and we would be fine. When we first started that was really what people were leaning into.” Now, Sweet Freedom sells over 20 varieties of cheddar from around the USA and UK. Their best seller is Barber’s 1833 Vintage Reserve Cheddar, a crunchy, savory, British cheddar with 24 months of age crafted by 6th generation cheesemakers.

Also Look For

In addition to charcuterie and various gourmet products amenable to cheese pairing, Sweet Freedom also sells a selection of mostly international wine — with a refreshingly robust selection of South African wines — and mostly local beers for off-premise consumption. Party cheese and charcuterie platters and tiered wedding cheese “cakes” are also available. Public classes and events including raclette night pop ups may soon be available in the future, but meanwhile Sweet Freedom offers private parties and cheese classes by request.