Uplands Cheese: Past, Present & Future

Editor’s note: Contributing Editor David Phillips profiled one of the most celebrated creameries in the U.S., Uplands Cheese, of Dodgeville, Wisconsin. The following piece delves even more deeply into the story of the company renowned for making Pleasant Ridge Reserve and Rush Creek Reserve, with both Uplands co-founder Mike Gingrich and current co-owner Andy Hatch.

Gingriches and Patenaudes photo credit Uplands Cheese

Mike Gingrich established Uplands Cheese with his wife Carol and another couple (Dan and Jeanne Patenaud), initially purchasing farmland in 1994 to establish a rotational grazing farm that would produce good milk in a responsible way. Within a few years, that led to cheesemaking. The first wheels of Pleasant Ridge Reserve were sold in 2001, and were made with Uplands milk at Cedar Grove Cheese, near Plain, Wis. The Uplands creamery, near Dodgeville, was completed in 2004. In 2014, Andy Hatch and his partner Scott Mericka purchased the company from the founders.

The Vision for Uplands Cheese

How did the cheesemaking get started?

Mike Gingrich: We looked into making cheese starting in 1997 or 1998. The original thought was that since we were grazing our cows, we had an opportunity to make great cheese. Old cheesemakers told us that the best milk was the spring milk when cows were in pasture—in April and May when cows first hit grass. There are European cheeses, like Beaufort Alpage, that must be made while the cows are eating fresh pasture. With our rotational grazing, in 20 paddocks, we could have cows eating fresh grass every day from April to October. There were other people grazing but nobody was making cheese from it. So, we thought we could make a cheese that none of the cheese companies could compete with.

How did you go about developing the cheese?

Mike Gingrich: We had talked with the Center for Dairy Research (CDR) and they gave me names of some well-regarded cheesemakers. We did think we would take it to a neighboring factory, where we would have them make cheese from our milk for a fee, and then we would then take possession of it and market it ourselves. In 2000 we took our milk to the CDR and then to Cedar Grove Cheese where we ran test batches under the guidance of their cheesemakers. We would make a batch, and they would age it overnight in their cave, and I would pick it up and bring the wheels to my house where I had a Pepsi soft drink cooler for aging. I put four cedar boards and a fan and a pan of water in it. We made 32 wheels of cheese that summer as test cases, with slightly different make procedures, and we aged it for four months.

Bob Wills (of Cedar Grove) served on the tasting panel, and we picked the make procedure that we liked best. The first full batch was May 1. 2001, and that first summer we would make wheels every other Saturday. My wife Carol and I would make it under the direction of the cheesemakers at Cedar Grove. We rented aging space at a commercial kitchen in Spring Green. We would start at 11 am, had the wheels on the presses at 3 pm. At 3 am the next morning we would drive back up to Cedar Grove and take 60 or 70 wheels to Spring Green. We transported the green cheeses in plastic bags, and every day we would wash and turn the wheels.

What brought you to Uplands Cheese in 2006?

Andy Hatch and Mike Gingrich, 2010 photo credit Uplands Cheese

Andy Hatch: I went back to school at University of Wisconsin Madison for dairy science. I was writing a paper about the influence of feed on milk quality and interviewed Mike for it. What attracted me was the fact that it was farmstead, they were making raw milk cheese, and aging cheese with a natural rind. Those were hallmarks of the places I had visited and worked at in Europe, but it was not done so much here. They had become profitable and stable but without compromising their integrity—with grass-fed cows and raw milk and only making one cheese. I really admired that, being a 25-year-old idealistic kid. They hired me in 2006 working in the cheese caves as the low man on the totem pole. Uplands was six years old then and pretty well-established, and really had a full head of steam. So my timing was lucky.

Once you launched, what were the different roles for you and for Carol and for Jeanne and Dan?

Mike Gingrich: Carol and Jeanne both had off-farm jobs. Dan and I agreed that he would worry about the cows and I would worry about trying to get the business off the ground, and trying to sell the cheese.

Andy and Scott (current herd manager/co-owner Scott Mericka) became managers within a few years. What impressed you about them when they first joined part-time?

Mike Gingrich: Andy was serious, hardworking, and smart. He was a natural. He was interested in the cheese, and the farming and grazing. And the same with Scott. He was great with the herd and the pasture. He was only a couple years out of college.

The Cheeses

How and when did Rush Creek Reserve come about, and how did it affect the business?

Andy Hatch: For the first couple years I went back to Europe in winters. I had worked for a cheesemaker who was making Vacheron Mont d’or. He was making Comte’ in the summer and Vacheron in the winter. So, In 2008 when I put together a deal to buy the (Uplands) farm, Rush Creek played into it. Rush Creek would make the business more profitable and allow us to borrow money and be able to service the debt. Also to show off the quality of the different seasons in milk.

In 2008, when I first attempted to buy it, I had been there two years and I was 27 years old. I thought I was ready, but maybe I wasn’t. I was worried it would be sold out from under me. They (the founders) were in their late 60s, and quietly looking for a buyer. Cheese companies came to look, but they weren’t interested in running a pastured farm. Some farmers came to look but did not want to run raw milk affinage. You couldn’t just start making Pleasant Ridge Reserve in a large cheese factory somewhere. Eventually, Mike realized there wasn’t going to be a corporate buyer so he made a deal with us.

What do you love most about Pleasant Ridge, and about Rush Creek?

Pleasant Ridge Reserve photo credit Uplands Cheese

Andy Hatch: Pleasant Ridge really does tell the story of our season here. The same cows, the same feed 108 days in a row and they all taste different. Tasting a different piece of the pasture with every batch. The qualities are hidden in that cheese all winter. That feeling of discovery is always captivating. People ask if we get bored making just two cheeses. It is always changing. I really connect Pleasant Ridge to the front end, and Rush Creek is the back end of the equation. It has become an emotional celebratory cheese for our customers. We get to absorb a certain amount of affection from that. It’s the end of the year, and we look for food to celebrate that. Also, that it’s a raw-milk, handmade little cheese from a family farm in Wisconsin. It’s an authentic artisan cheese, and you don’t get that in a pasteurized brie from France. For us, we just saw (Rush Creek) as a way to use the fattier milk. But it’s really been a joy.

The Second Act

Ten years have passed since the successors took over. How are they are doing?

Mike Gingrich: They are doing great. They are doing fantastic. Dan likes to say those two guys do our jobs better than we did. I’m thinking they are probably producing twice as much cheese as we did.

You have in the past told the story of reading the original business plan after having purchased the business in 2014. What impressed you about that?

Andy Hatch: It was a relatively simple plan and that was part of the beauty of it, and Mike had the discipline to follow through on the simple approach. Everything was focused on the one cheese. Once the business took off, most people would have been tempted to make it more complicated. He never did. He had the self-discipline to follow that plan and not get distracted. That was also lucky timing. The willingness for the market to embrace a cheese like that was also part of it. I don’t think it would have been as well accepted 1995, but it was by 2000.

You mentioned plans to expand aging space as Uplands is at full capacity. What are your near-future plans for the business?

Andy Hatch: At the same time there are some infrastructure needs on the farm side. There has been about a 15-year investment gap, because we changed ownership. If you look at the growth projections of a lot of our peers, like Jasper Hill, Point Reyes, Cowgirl Creamery, and Sweetgrass, they have grown far bigger and far faster. None of those had to deal with an ownership change. We are not making decisions from a horrible place. The most straightforward way to grow is to make more of our own cheese. But if we invest in affinage we could age cheeses for other cheesemakers.

Would that mean buying green cheese and adding an Uplands fingerprint through affinage, or just providing cold storage?

Andy Hatch: We are interested in both. We’re primarily interested in real affinage, but we have neighbors like us, who are just out of space, and if we build a new facility that’s half empty, we would love to help them if we can.

Bonus

What artisan cheese companies outside of Wisconsin have impressed you?

Andy Hatch: Meadow Creek D a iry for their commitment to their land and their cows and the cheeses that really express the character of their farm. Jasper Hill for relentless innovation. They have plowed a lot of ground for the rest of us. Capriole for the sheer beauty of their cheeses.

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