Oser Communications Group

The Cheese Guide 15 that are on pasture nine to 10 months a year, Rogue Creamery has converted all of its production to organic cheeses, although there's still some cheese made from nonorganic milk in the aging rooms. The last nonorganic wheel to come out of Rogue Creamery will be a wheel of Rogue River Blue that's due to finish aging and be released to the market in September 2017. "That's an unusual one in that the affinage period is over a year," Plowman said. "We're always testing the cheese to make sure that it's being released at its best. We taste the blue cheese in lots of about 170 wheels. We would taste from every lot to make sure that the cheese is okay. We don't release by the calendar. We release by the performance of the cheese at our organoleptic testing." Once that last wheel of Rogue River Blue cheese made from noncertified milk has come to market, all of the cheese coming out of Rogue Creamery will be organic. That commitment to organic production is part of what Plowman's talking about when he says that Rogue Creamery looks for "like-mindedness" in both its partners and its employees. "We're a B Corp. company. Then we kind of go from there," Plowman said. "Our owner's on the governor's sustainability board. We have three solar projects. We have a lot of green programs." Rogue Creamery's organic certification comes from Oregon Tilth, and the creamery is third-party audited by ASI Food Safety and regulated by the Oregon Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "We have two people on the quality assurance team, which is a lot for such a small company. It's a huge part of our business to adapt to the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) changes. We feel that we have that. We have expert people who are prepared to adapt and make sure our standards are the highest," Plowman said. "We're very compliant. We've had excellent scores in our audits.... We are not satisfied with meeting government standards of quality; we go a lot further and always hire third party auditors, such as ASI Food Safety, to evaluate our quality standards and practices." Animal welfare is also paramount at the Rogue Creamery Dairy, and a shared sense of how to achieve that was very much what persuaded the company that Hayton was a like-minded herdsman. "We're very proud that we have robotic milkers for the cows," Plowman added. "It's something we've had for about a year and eight months. The cows can be milked any time they want." "When they feel they want to be milked, they can come into the milking parlor any time. Each cow has a computer chip that allocates its ration, and they get a little back rub. We call it the cow spa," he continued. "It's a great thing that they can be milked whenever they want to and not be dependent on someone to come and get them into the milking parlor." to have a really good cheddar. People want the heat, the chipotle spice. They want the herb flavors." The creamery has won multiple awards for the quality of its cheeses, most recently silver medals for two mixed milk cheeses, Echo Mountain Blue and Mount Mazama Cheddar, at the 29th Annual World Cheese Awards in San Sebastian, Spain. "We've done since 2005 mixed milk cheeses since 2005, and we've been very successful with that," Plowman said. "Echo Mountain is a combination of goat milk and cow milk and has been in the top three of the World Cheese awards Awards seven times in the last 10 years. Mount Mazama has been in the top three a couple of times." The goat milk in the Echo Mountain and Mount Mazama contributes a recognizable tang and a complexity of flavor. "Particularly at the end, the tang comes through, and you know you're eating something that has goat's milk," Plowman said. "You get the creamy mouth feel and the buttery taste of the cow milk cheddar. What's different about it is the tang, and the finish is a long finish." The goat milk for the cheeses comes from Todd Hayton at Shadow Vale Farm, just down the road from Rogue Creamery's organic dairy farm, which makes an easy commute for Hayton, who's also the Rogue Creamery's herdsman. Rogue Creamery bought the dairy in 2012, and it has been producing most of the cow milk for Rogue Creamery for about the last year and a half, achieving organic status about a year ago. "That's been the plan since 2002, to have our own dairy, to have it be organic and to do 100 percent organic production," Plowman said. "We knew that we needed an expert to run that dairy. We wanted someone with experience and familiarity, and like-mindedness was important too. Todd really understood our sustainable way of doing business.... It's a pleasure to see him with the animals. It's sort of like the cow-whisperer, to do a cliché. His passion for the cows is quite something, and it's very obvious – you can just see it." Hayton joined Rogue Creamery in the spring of 2014. "We really wanted to find somebody like-minded, and to find somebody who's just at one with the animals is just a huge bonus," Plowman said. "The cows just gravitate to him. It's interesting. They sense what he's all about." With a steady supply of organic milk now assured from cows Cary Bryant & David Gremmels

• Cover