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The Cheese Guide 9 it worked out great," she says. "I needed chèvre [to fill orders] that week. That's why that made sense." Since then, the operation has grown significantly. The 10,000 square-foot production facility now houses a 12,000-pound and a 20,000-pound vat in which Katie makes 11 different varieties of cheese on a five-day-a-week schedule, for a total of 18 to 20 different cheeses. Earlier this year, the company acquired a 200- square-foot cheese cave for affinage. Evalon, the company's original cheese, is still the flagship. Chandoka, which won a second-place award in the best of show category at the 2015 American Cheese Society Judging and Competition as Standard Market Cave Aged Chandoka, has a special place in her heart because she created that cheese. David Rogers was Standard Market's affineur at that time, but he joined LaClare Family Creamery this April when the operation opened the cheese cave and started aging Chandoka on site. LaClare Farms Specialties took home a third-place award from the ACS judging this year for LaClare Farms Cave Aged Chandoka. "David Rogers, the affineur, took it to a place that I don't know if I could. The program he has set up – it was such a vision, but I didn't know how to get there," Katie says. "The stars aligned, and it just worked out so perfect to be able to work with him to do that." It's too soon to know how the synergy between Rogers and the Hedrich family will influence the evolution of the LaClare cheeses, Katie says. "Something that is different is that we can market it. We can talk about it. It's like a whole different level of pride because it's all under our roof," she says. "We started out as a farm. My parents always wanted to be able to add value back to the farm. They focused on the right things. Having that to work with is kind of neat.... When you focus on the milk, it makes everything else that much easier. Nothing in this industry is easy, but when you focus on the milk, it pays off dividends." Joey Widmer Living in the House His Great-Grandfather Built Joey Widmer grew up with a dad who made cheese, which meant that he grew up helping in the cheese plant, but that he also got to spend time with a dad who finished his work day earlier than many other dads did. "I always did small jobs, probably starting when I was 12, but I don't think I was on the payroll until I was 16," he says. "I think it was just natural because I was part of the family. My dad started asking me to do small jobs, and it just grew from there." Joey's dad, Joe Widmer, is the Owner and third-generation Cheesemaker at Widmer's Cheese Cellars, in Theresa, Wisconsin. The creamery was started by Joe's grandfather, who came to the U.S. in 1905, started working as an apprentice in a cheese factory, and bought his own cheese plant in 1918. In 1922, he bought the building in which Joey lives and both he and his father work today. "I always knew that I had to just give it a shot, to find out if I liked it or not, and as with any business, there's always room for extra help," Joey says. "I worked my way up like everybody else. I did a lot of cleaning – literally, cleaning toilets.... I learned the value of manual labor and working your way up." He left home to get a bachelor's degree in business and then moved back to live with his parents while he was pursuing his master's degree in business administration from Carroll University in Waukesha, Wisconsin. When he had earned that degree, he moved a few blocks away from his parents, into the three-bedroom apartment over the family cheese factory. "My family, we lived there until I was eight years old, and then they built a house a couple of blocks away. And now I've come last circle," he says. "I always remember people pulling into the retail store out front. I also remember people coming to the back door saying that they'd driven 250 miles for cheese, and my dad saying, okay, he'd open up the store." Today, Joey's doing a little bit of everything in his dad's business. "I'm helping every aspect of the business from production to packaging to food safety. I currently do marketing. Also, the financial side of it. Also quality control," he says. "There's a lot of days when I think I'd rather be doing manual labor than doing desk jobs." Widmer's Cheese Cellars specializes in Cheddar, Brick and Colby, made from traditional recipes. Brick is an American Original, invented in Wisconsin, and Joe still uses the bricks his grandfather used to weight the cheese as it matures on his shelves, and he still sells his cheese in the same retail shop that's at the front of his building today. The company took home awards from this year's ACS judging for its Washed Rind Brick Cheese and Mild Brick Cheese. Joey is 28 years old and still single – "I have a dog," – and he's giving some thought to the future that lies ahead. He's not sure that he's going to devote the rest of his career to the business he grew up in, but he says that, however that decision turns out, he's learned some valuable lessons from his dad, who spent Joey's childhood getting up early in the morning to make cheese and usually finished his work day around the time that Joey got home from school. "We probably had the same bedtime," he says. "If I have kids, I'll learn a lesson from him and spend time with them. It's important. More important than work." "I never thought that he was different from other fathers except that he was a great dad. It never affected him being with me," he adds. "The older I get, the more I realize that he has a unique job position that not everyone is able to experience. Not everyone has that opportunity." Joey Widmer

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