Sweet Grass Dairy Gears up for Growth

Veteran Georgia cheesemaker Sweet Grass Dairy is moving into new digs--a state of the art creamery designed to help the company write a new chapter of growth and brand development. Sweet Grass, a family-owned company founded in 2000 cut the ribbon recently on the 12,500 square foot facility which will triple its production capacity.  The in-design phase II expansion which could take place in the next couple of years, will result in a five-fold increase in cheese capacity, and triple the cold-storage space.

"In talking with other cheesemakers we realized we were too small to be big but too big to be small, so we needed to take the next step," says Jessica Little, who owns the creamery with her husband Jeremy.  “We felt we were in scarcity management mode for some time, so we are confident that we have the demand." Sweet Grass has participated in the Whole Foods 12-days of Cheese promotion and is working with distributors in major markets coast to coast. These factors and others helped the company decide that the time was right for an expansion, Little says. Their cheeses include a French-style bloomy rind named Green Hill (1st Place 2015 The American Cheese Society), a natural-rind blue, a spreadable cheese fresh cheese, and two tomme-style cheeses as well as a pimento cheese made from the raw-milk Thomasville Tomme. Green Hill was named for the first rotational grazing farm in the family, and Asher Blue was named for the Little's second son. 

Sweet Grass also completed a recent rebranding effort, and in 2019, a full-time national sales rep was hired to help achieve greater market penetration nationally.  The rebrand goes beyond a refreshment of logo and graphics. Instead, it draws upon the very things that led Little's parents, Al and Desiree Wehner, to dissolve a successful conventional dairy milk partnership a quarter of a century ago, and eventually led to launching of the cheese operation in Thomasville, Ga. The Wehner family now operates grazing herds totaling 1,500 cows and supplies all of the milk used for Sweet Grass cheeses. While the Wehners had spent more than a decade in Florida, milking Holsteins in barns, they changed everything when they were introduced to rotational grazing.

From Holsteins to Jerseys

“My dad had been working 80-90 hours a week.  Mom has a genetic minor degree, but that was difficult to do with a high-production Holstein operation. The land was not healthy. Waste management was a constant problem,” Little said. “My dad started thinking that his grandfather (Al came from a farming family in Upstate New York) would say that if you had a sick cow, put it in the pasture. If you put it on grass its health would improve. So, Mom sent him to a conference in Wisconsin in 1992 in which a New Zealand farm organization explained the process and the benefits of grazing, which is a very popular method in New Zealand.”

The Wehners approached their business partners with the idea of converting the Florida operation, but the partners weren’t having it. So the Wehners sold out and “bought the cheapest land they could find,” Little says. They started farming in Georgia with Holsteins from the partnership, but that changed quickly as the large cows did not take well to grazing.  

“They sold the Holsteins and invested in Jerseys. They could run 500 cows with three people. The Jerseys did well, and they were managing the grass with the cows,” she said.

Grazing is amazing

While it is not practical for all cheesemaking farmers, grazing is practiced by many. Because it avails the animals of their natural diet (mostly grasses and legumes) and environment, grazing allows the cows to produce their highest quality milk. For the farmers, it makes for a much quieter, simpler kind of farming--one with a lot less time spent on tractors. Cows are moved twice daily from different areas known as paddocks, to the benefit of the pasture. The pasture in turn feeds the cows. A Wisconsin grazer I once met said he found that he saw and heard more birds after he converted, and had time to attend his kids’ little league games.

So, how do you put that on a label?  Sweet Grass is using the term Barn-Free. Little says it won’t tell the whole story, but it’s a great phrase for starting the conversation (take note fellow cheesemongers).  The new logo features an image of a single cow in silhouette trotting through a grassy pasture.  Yes, there are lots of grassy pastures near Thomasville, which is less than an hour north of Tallahassee, Fla. The region receives abundant rainfall that feeds a massive aquifer. All that water leads to lush pastures when managed properly.

A new creamery

Construction on the new creamery began in the summer of 2019 and was delayed by the pandemic. By March or April it is hoped that all of the 6 Sweet Grass cheeses in current production will have moved to the new creamery. Little said there will be no rush. The original creamery will be utilized until quality goals are met at the new facility, and customers will be given notice when cheese orders are about to transition. 

Sweet Grass has received financing and will spend about $5 million on the new creamery. Numerous upgrades in the new plant include an HTST (high-temperature short time) pasteurizing system, CIP (Clean in Place) capabilities, and a French-built air handling system (for the finishing room) that will allow for more precise quality control during aging, Little says. In the end, this will provide better quality control from milk treatment through make and aging, and provide greater consistency in the finished product. 

The next generation

Little and her husband Jeremy joined the company in 2002 with some reluctance, simply because they were leaving behind their careers and lives in Atlanta. Jeremy, who has a culinary education and background, was intrigued by the opportunity to make cheese and has served as head cheesemaker since the couple joined the business.

Meanwhile, the Wehners are mostly retired, and the three dairy farm operations are operated by Jessica's brother, Clay Wehner. Those farms produce much more milk than what is needed for the creamery, but with the expansion, the milk of two of the three herds will go directly into making the award-winning cheeses.