Artisanal dairy products offer fresh tastes and economic development in some small towns

Small dairy farmers can't compete with the commodity prices of large processors, but some are succeeding by producing artisanal dairy products that cater to high-end consumers, reports Marian Burros of The New York Times. "These artisanal operations are turning cow, goat or sheep milk into simple, straightforward foods like crème fraîche, butter, buttermilk, ice cream, puddings, custards, yogurt, yogurt-based sauces and yogurt drinks," Burros writes. (Times photo by Tony Cenicola shows some such products.)

These products and their producers are succeeding because "there is an increasingly sophisticated public that appreciates the difference between mass-produced dumbed-down food and the handiwork of a small dairy that has learned to produce exceptional butter or yogurt or ice cream by doing it the way it was done before World War II, when there was a creamery in every town," Burros adds. (Read more)

While the trend has made for some interesting menu items in the restaurants of New York, it also offers a great opportunity for economic development for small towns and rural areas, writes Jack Schulz at Boomtown USA. He writes that artisanal cheese production is "one of the fastest growing niche ag businesses that I’m witnessing," and he wonders if the industry could grow like the wine industry has over the past few decades.

"A Cornell University dairy science professor, Frank Kosikowski, first started the movement in 1983 when he founded the American Cheese Society," Shulz writes. "In the first year that someone bothered to count these cheese producers in 1990 there were 75. In the count in 2006 there were over 400." Schulz notes that at this year's Society taste off, one winner was an aged Raclette made by Leelanau Cheese Company of Suttons Bay, Mich., (pop. 589), a small town just north of Traverse City. (Read more)