Oser Communications Group

BY LORRIE BAUMANN Sweet Grass Dairy is making a name for itself in Georgia with an award-winning line of six cheeses made from pasture-raised cow milk and traditional European methods. Sweet Grass Dairy's Thomasville Tomme won a gold sofi Award and a Good Food Award in 2018; Asher Blue won a bronze medal in the 2015 and 2009 World Cheese Awards; Green Hill, a double-cream cow milk cheese with a bloomy rind in the style of a Camembert and the dairy's best seller, is an eight-time winner at the American Cheese Society's annual Judging and Competition; and the dairy's Pimento Cheese won a first place award from the American Cheese Society in 2015. "I really, really love our Green Hill. It has really put us on the map," says Sweet Grass Dairy co-Owner Jessica Little. "I think it's a great vehicle for telling the story of grass-based milk. It's a golden yellow color, and it's mild enough to be approachable for people who didn't grow up eating fine cheese." Jessica and her husband, Jeremy Little, bought Sweet Grass Dairy from her parents, Al and Desiree Wehner, in 2005. The Wehners started Sweet Grass Dairy in 2000 after they decided that the way they'd been dairy farming for more than a decade wasn't good for their cows, their land or themselves. Their herd of Holsteins was producing high milk volume, but the cows were able to produce at that volume for only an average of two to three years before they had to be retired. "The land wasn't as healthy as it needed to be. They were working 100-hour weeks," Jessica says. They decided that there had to be a better way, so Desiree signed Al up for a conference on New Zealand-style rotational grazing methods. In common with New Zealand, the climate in southwest Georgia, where Sweet Grass Dairy is located, has mild winters that allow for 365 days of grazing per year and Sweet Grass Dairy enjoys an unlimited water supply, so it seemed logical that the same grazing methods that work in New Zealand could also work in Thomasville. "He came back from the conference saying they were starting over," Jessica says. The couple sold their Holstein herd and, following the advice of other local dairy farmers, bought Jersey cows that hadn't had the ability to thrive on pasture bred out of them. "That was in 1993," Jessica says. "By 2000, the average lifespan of the cows had gone up Sweet Grass on the Green Hill makes

• Cover