Each month, your Neighboring Food Co-ops feature our region’s artisan cheesemakers by offering a specially selected cheese at great price. Look for the “Cave to Co-op” sign in the cheese section at your local food co-op. To find one near you, visit www.nfca.coop/members.
This month’s special cheese is Riley’s 2×4 from Blue Ledge, Salisbury, VT
Rileys 2×4 is a raw milk Blue Ledge Farm original, named for “Riley” their herding dog is a blend of MoSe Farm Ayrshire cow milk and their goats milk, hand made and pressed into 6 lb wheels and cave aged 3 months. It’s nutty, smooth and full-bodied matched with a finish of sweetness.
Hannah and Greg believe in a food system that is based on a cornerstone of respect for the land, the animals and the consumer as well as the local community. They both celebrate the opportunity to raise healthy, contented animals and make great cheese!
Blue Ledge Farm began as a dream in Florence, Italy where Greg and Hannah met while studying the art and culture of Europe. In 2000, the two began the work of transforming an old cow dairy farm back into production with goats. The barn, which once housed seventy Holstein cows, would now be home to Alpine and La Mancha dairy goats. They began milking four goats at Blue Ledge Farm, and began processing cheese two years later. Today Hannah and Greg milk over one hundred goats and produce eleven types of cheese, from very fresh to semi-aged bloomy rind cheeses, to harder cheeses aged three months. True to their mission with a focus that is always on sustaining a high-quality, consistent product with lots of attention and gentle handling.
Hunger Mountain Co-op had a wonderful highlight of Blue Ledge Farm as their Featured Vendor in December 2018. You can read their in-depth article here.
The 150 acres of Blue Ledge Farm consist of woods, hay-land, pasture and wetland. In 2004 they financed the cheese room construction by selling development rights to the Vermont Land Trust, thereby ensuring that the land will always be open and never developed. In 2009, wetlands were identified as one of the farm’s great natural resources and so they agreed to conserve those fifty acres of wetland and return them to their natural state as a valuable part of the local ecosystem. The goats spend their spring, summer and fall days browsing in the woods, return to the barn for 4 pm milking and lounge around in a grass pasture as evening sets.
Blue Ledge Farm notes that 2023 was a big year for Riley’s 2×4. It has been a staff favorite for years and thanks to the collaboration of cows and goats they hope for continued growth of this cheese, serving as a model of sustainable dairy farming, and supporting Vermont’s family farms and rural communities.
Cave to Co-op is a partnership between Provision International and the Neighboring Food Co-op Association (NFCA) to support local, artisanal cheese producers in our region and make their products more easily available to co-op shoppers. The NFCA is a network of more than 40 food co-ops in our region — including yours — that are working together to advance their vision of a thriving regional economy, rooted in a healthy, just and sustainable food system and a vibrant community of co-operative enterprise. For more information, please visit www.nfca.coop.