FORT COLLINS, Colo. — To find out how just how great the allure of specialty cheese has become for the American consumer, look no further than Tom and Kristi Johnson.

Though they both have cheesemakers in their families, Tom, a communications director for a nonprofit organization, and Kristi, a patent attorney, had never made a piece of cheese in their lives up until the day Kristi Johnson tuned in to a television show about artisanal European cheeses and was struck with the realization that many of those cheeses weren't available in the United States.

That one television show and subsequent trips to the grocery store — where both Tom and Kristi Johnson felt shortchanged on U.S. options — were eye-opening.

Thus began the conversations between husband and wife which evolved into a business plan and then later into a company now known as Bingham Hill Cheese Co., a name coined to recognize the settlers of the nearby Bingham Hill area of Laporte, Colo.

The Johnsons' young company, based in Fort Collins, Colo., has been in business since late 1999 when the couple made their first batch of Rustic Blue.

The cheese was just about as close to an overnight success as you can get when it comes to cheese. After aging the cheese for four months, the Johnsons sampled their first batch in the spring of 2000. The cheese, they say, is different from other blues in that it has less moisture, less of a dominant blue taste and more of a complex cheese flavor. They call it a "bold blue-veined table cheese with a firm, crusty rind."

"And we thought it was awfully good," says Tom Johnson.

Upon tasting it, others agreed.

The Johnsons sent samples to about 20 stores and had a multitude of orders in hand soon thereafter, including an order from a Dean & DeLuca store, a company that operates retail stores and a catalog selling fine foods and kitchen ware.

"David Levine, the cheese buyer for the catalog, opened it, tasted it and called us five minutes later," Tom Johnson says.

One of Bingham Hill's first customers, Dean & DeLuca remains an important customer today.

And then there are the awards, including a first place in its class at the American Cheese Society Competition last August and a third place in its class at the U.S. Championship Cheese Contest sponsored by the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association this spring.

The Johnsons started out making about 250 pounds of Rustic Blue a week. They just began making 1,600 pounds a week this past month, bringing their annual output to almost 80,000 pounds of Rustic Blue annually.

While this is a tiny amount of cheese compared to many modern cheesemakers, the Johnsons are pleased with their success thus far. And they've even started to branch out a little.

In May, they introduced their Fresh & Simple cheese, a fresh cheese made with vat-pasteurized milk and flavored with herbs. Though distribution isn't widespread, Tom Johnson notes they are already selling about 900 7-ounce tubs a week at farmers' markets.

• Microbreweries provide market insight

All of this success may seem to have come quite easily but there has been — and still is — a lot of work to make it all happen.

"It's been a combination of hard work and good luck," Tom Johnson says.

When the Johnsons first decided to explore the specialty cheese arena, they started by talking with several Colorado microbreweries which are doing well in their area, including New Belgium, maker of Fat Tire, and O'Dell's, maker of 90 Schilling.

"The microbrew industry has taken off," Tom Johnson says.

The microbrew industry has been so successful, in fact, that the Johnsons — who are already pressed for space in the facility they are leasing to make their cheese — are considering building a new cheesemaking facility in the vicinity of New Belgium and O'Dell's.

If they decide to build in that area, the breweries and what the Johnsons call their "microcheesery" could be the foundation for a visitor center, he notes. The decision on building there will be made in the next couple of years, he adds.

The Johnsons credit much of their initial knowledge of the specialty foods industry to the microbreweries. While they talked to a lawyer and utilized small business development resources in their area, Kristi Johnson says it really was the microbrewery people that provided the most insight into what they could expect in launching their own specialty business. The microbrewery operators provided thoughts on the equipment and the supplies they would need, she notes.

• Focusing on blue

Still, starting a cheese business from scratch can be a daunting task and the Johnsons knew they had a lot to do if they were to be successful. Before they made any cheese, they first had to take cheesemaking classes, network with specialty cheesemakers and investigate a milk supply.

They also had to decide what cheese to make. And while Kristi Johnson says the whole project was carefully thought out and considered, deciding what kind of cheese to make was easy.

"We like blue cheese. That's a terrible reason to choose it," Kristi Johnson says with a laugh, "but we also found it was something we could sell at a price to provide the income stream."

Rustic Blue is made from unpasteurized milk from one nearby Holstein dairy. One of the things that makes the cheese different from others is the quality of the milk, they say.

That, and the pampering the Johnsons' cheese receives.

Bingham Hill features very little automation. The curds are stirred by people and cut when they are ready. They are hand-ladled into forms. And each cheese is turned and inspected daily to ensure proper drainage and formation.

People appreciate the handmade nature of their product, Tom Johnson says.

"We're losing some of the nuances of a simpler time," he says of society in general.

The Johnsons, along with their employees, keep a close eye on their cheese so it's as near to perfection as possible. And sometimes perfection is easier to come by than others as they learn more and more about their craft.

For example, last summer the Johnsons learned firsthand about the fluctuation of butterfat in cows' milk during the summer months. Because they don't know for a few weeks how their cheese has turned out, the Johnsons didn't know at first that a few batches of cheese they made with lower butterfat weren't progressing as nicely as most.

"We made it the same way we usually do and it didn't develop the blue veining like it usually does," Kristi Johnson says. "We repunched it and it still didn't do anything. It was a really dry cheese."

Because Bingham Hill's market is a specialty one, they haven't developed a market for this kind of second-class cheese. They ended up giving it to a wolf rescue program where the wolves ate it. And they've since learned how to better account for butterfat fluctuations, Kristi Johnson says.

• Branching out a bit

The Johnsons also have learned to make the best out of other mistakes. One batch of cheese that they forgot to punch holes into was entered in the hard cheese category in the U.S. Championship Cheese Contest where it earned fifth place.

Called "Ghost Town," the hard cheese has hints of blue but isn't veined, the Johnsons say. The blue wisps look like lonely ghosts in a deserted landscape, they say, which is why they named it "Ghost Town." They are considering making more of the cheese but are short on aging space so probably won't make much more of it for now.

Meanwhile, with aging space at a premium and the fact that blue cheese tends to overcome the other cheeses around it, the Johnsons are branching out with their Fresh & Simple cheese which is made with milk and cream, cultured overnight, drained the next day in cheese cloth and then blended with herbs.

"We wanted a cheese that commands a premium, but doesn't tie up more aging space," Tom Johnson says.

The cheese comes in garlic and herb, rosemary and pepper and basil and garlic. The Johnsons also want to try a blue Fresh & Simple cheese, although Kristi Johnson isn't so sure how successful it will be because the blue mold tends to grow so quickly.

• Specialty marketing

Farmers' markets provide the Johnsons an excellent opportunity to introduce their Fresh & Simple cheese and Rustic Blue to potential customers. Bingham Hill cheese is sold at 20 Colorado farmers' markets each week, with part-time employees including neighbors and college students featuring the cheese.

"A lot of people don't know how cheese is made," Kristi Johnson says. "We give it to them and say, 'Try it.' And they say, 'Just like that? I've only had blue cheese in salad dressing.'

"Having them taste our cheese is such an eye-opener. A lot of them say, 'I didn't know I liked blue cheese so much,'" she says.

Beyond farmers' markets, the Johnsons sell their cheese to a number of specialty food and cheese stores around the country.

They also sell their cheese over the Internet for $13 a pound; at retail, Rustic Blue sells anywhere from $12-$20 a pound. To attract local clientele, they operate a small "store" — a tiny refrigerator case in the front room of the plant which also includes a few American specialty cheeses from other companies. This allows their customers to try other artisanal cheeses that they can't get in the area, Kristi says.

Rustic Blue also was featured this spring at an event sponsored by the American Dairy Association at Manhattan's Artisanal Fromagerie where the press was invited to sample various cheese flights. Each "flight" featured three to five cheeses of the same variety, and the Johnsons were there to personally represent the blue cheese flight which included Rustic Blue.

• Looking toward the future

Rustic Blue is made into 4.5- to 5-pound wheels, as well as 2-pound wheels for Dean & DeLuca's catalog and 6-ounce wedges for farmers' markets. Rustic Blue is handwrapped in a gold wrap with a sketch depicting Bingham Hill. The Johnsons' focus on the handmade basics carries over to the label; it's a simple sketch that a relative, who happens to own the Boulder, Colo., graphic design firm Vermilion, drew for them. The relative asked a professional artist for additional development of the sketch but when Kristi and Tom saw the finished product, it just wasn't right and they decided to stick with the original sketch.

Someday that label may grace quite a bit more cheese. The Johnsons' dream for the company is to grow it into a self-sustainable business eventually producing 200,000 pounds of cheese or so annually. They won't get too big, though, as they firmly believe in the handmade nature of their cheese and don't want to lose that quality.

While running a small, hands-on cheese business is a lot of work, the Johnsons say they don't regret for a moment their decision to take the plunge. After all, it's not so different from her work as a patent attorney, Kristi says, because she was already working with science and agricultural inventions.

"But I was sitting at a computer all day," she says. "Now I talk to more people and it's more fun."

CMN

A similar article about Bingham Hill Cheese, also by Cheese Market News' Kate Sander, will be featured in the English-version of Caseus, a quarterly Italian magazine of art and cheese culture for producers, scientists and connoisseurs in the world of cheese. The magazine will debut at the American Cheese Society conference in Louisville, Ky., in August.