The Boucher clan of Highgate Center, Vermont don't just have a family business—they have a legacy. 14 generations of Bouchers have worked as dairy farmers, first in the territory that would become Quebec, then Vermont since 1940. Their lineage is strong, but the economics of dairy have changed and small family-run dairies are getting harder and harder to operate. So in 1999, Dawn and Dan Boucher founded Green Mountain Blue Cheese to make cheese with milk from their herd of cows. "The creamery allowed my aunt and uncle to help supplement their income," says their niece Kayleigh Boucher. "It's hard to make a living just selling fluid milk."
Kayleigh Boucher is the current cheesemaker at Green Mountain, where she crafts the blue cheese varieties that Dawn developed to fill a niche in the local artisan cheese market. Boucher Blue is a fudgy wheel striated with green and blue veins that contribute notes of white pepper, mushrooms, wet straw, and chocolate to the sweet and salty paste. Gore-Dawn-Zola is firm, salty, and milder than the typical gorgonzola, yet gently sharp and and tangy. Madison is aged to become dense, dry, and crumbly with intense umami and crunchy protein crystals. You can't help but smile when sampling these blues.
While Dawn and Dan Boucher are still involved in the business, they're ready to retire and let the next generation take the reins. Kayleigh Boucher grew up in Massachusetts but spent summers on the family farm, waking up at 4am to help her uncle milk the cows. As a teenager she graduated to the job of farm hand. "I was very lucky to have that experience," she says. "Most people don't ever set foot on a farm in their lives."
Her upbringing instilled a lifelong interest in the food systems that nourish us. She studied sustainable food and farming at the University of Massachusetts before returning to the family farm, and she's taken her advocacy to the chambers of the Vermont General Assembly. Federal and state programs like SNAP and Crop Cash PLUS helped low-income Vermonters buy produce at farmers markets, but not groceries like bread, cheese, and meat. Boucher helped convince the assembly to expand the purview of their matching funds, providing more food options for low-income shoppers and greater revenue to the small food businesses that vend at local markets.
At Green Mountain, Boucher is working to bring back sales to pre-covid levels. The creamery shut down during the pandemic and reopened in 2022. You can find her selling cheese at Vermont farmers markets during the season and at national competitions while she spreads the word about the family business. The dairy recently joined forces with another local farmer, expanding their milking herd to 200 cows. Though the odds are still stacked against small operations like theirs.
"There used to be dairies everywhere" Boucher says, "but now you drive around Franklin County and see lots of empty barns. A lot of the places that have survived have grown to herds of 750 cows or more." Part of the problem is corporate consolidation. Farm kids also have greater freedom to pursue less back-breaking work in cities and suburbs, and there aren't a lot of young people from non-farming backgrounds looking to get into agricultural careers. "It's a hard way of life," Boucher insists. "I think it's hard to get into if you're not born into it. When you're working with dairy animals, you have to milk the cows twice a day every day. You have to be on the farm every day to handle things that come up. You have to be incredibly hard working and have that value of hard work passed down from generation to generation."
Boucher is the only full-time employee at Green Mountain. Family friends pitch in at the creamery and farmers markets, keeping the company lean and focused on its excellent cheeses. It's hard work with long hours of isolation, but Boucher couldn't be happier. "Cheesemaking felt like a good fit for me," she says. "I'm still producing food though I'm not outside in the elements with animals every day, so it's a little more balanced and less intense." Her cheese is helping to keep the Boucher family's dairy tradition alive, even as the world changes around them. Because cheese doesn't just preserve milk. It preserves the small farms that keep us fed like they always have.
Try Green Mountain's wonderful blue cheese!
Photos courtesy of Green Mountain Blue Cheese.
