For fourth-generation cheesemaker Chris Roelli, working with dairy was just part of growing up. "All I knew was the milk hauling and cheesemaking life," he says. "I enjoyed it. It was ingrained in me as a young person what it meant to work hard. I was always taking out the trash or sweeping the floor or something."
Roelli is the owner of Roelli Cheese Haus, a century-old Wisconsin creamery with multiple honors from the American Cheese Society and World Cheese Championship. In addition to Wisconsin classics like cheese curds and bricks of Jack, Roelli is the maker of Red Rock and Dunbarton Blue, two unique cheddars that are inoculated with blue cheese cultures to form sharp and tangy cheddar-blue hybrids. Red Rock is a dense and smooth American style cheddar, complete with jack-o-lantern orange coloring thanks to an infusion of annatto seed. Dunbarton Blue is styled after English cheddars, but boasts a surprising note of American peanut butter amid the savory twang.
The idea for these hybrid cheeses came to Roelli in the mid 2000s, when he attended a talk by Neal's Yard Dairy founder Randolph Hodgson. The London cheesemonger mentioned how wheels of English cheddar sometimes split open and developed natural veins of blue mold. While some customers saw it as a defect, others considered it a delicacy. Roelli's favorite cheese styles were cheddar and blue. Why not, he thought, combine them in an intentional way? The results are as delicious as they are innovative, and show how a cheesemaker's entrepreneurial spirit can breathe new life into a century-old family business.
Chris Roelli's great-grandfather Adolph immigrated to the United States from Switzerland in the 1920s. He settled in Wisconsin where a sizable Swiss community had formed, and with a background in cheesemaking from work in France and Switzerland, he joined the local industry. He became resident cheesemaker for a cooperative of dairy farmers and had four children in the living quarters above the Hicks Cheese Factory. One of his children, Walter, became the coop's next cheesemaker in 1939. It was Walter who established the factory's retail shop and milk-hauling business. Walter's son Dave, Chris's father, took over when Walter was ready to retire.
At the time, the Hicks made what Roelli calls "commodity cheddar." For every 10 pounds of fluid milk produced in Wisconsin, Roelli explains, nine of it winds up getting made into cheese. Most of that cheese is standard stuff for melting into casseroles. That makes the cheesemaking market intensely competitive. "The industry was getting bigger," through the 70s and 80s, Roelli says, "much like what's happening to dairy farmers now. You're either massive and work on low margins or you're somehow specialized." By 1991, Dave Roelli lost one of his biggest customers over a price difference of a penny per pound. He decided to close the cheesemaking operation that year to focus on the company's milk hauling and retail shop.
Chris Roelli was determined to keep up the family business. In 2006, with financing from his father and a local bank loan, he opened Roelli Cheese Haus in the same building of the old Hicks Cheese Factory. Today Chris lives right where his great-grandfather did a hundred years ago. "It's still a lifestyle for me," he says cheerfully. "And I have a 10 step commute to work."
Roelli knew that if he wasn't going to compete on scale, he'd have to make a name for himself with something distinctive. That led to his decision to focus on artisan cheeses like Dunbarton Blue. It took a year of tinkering with the cheddar "host" to get it just right before adding blue cheese cultures. Dunbarton was an instant hit and soon accounted for half of Roelli's production. Red Rock followed shortly after.
Today, Roelli Cheese Haus ships out 180,000 to 200,000 pounds a year. "That's 11 times less cheese than my dad was making," Roelli explains. He notes that "there are six plants around me that could make 200,000 pounds of cheese in two days."
The milk for Roelli's cheese comes from a single farm with a closed herd of 85 cows. That means the farm only gets new cows through breeding, not purchases, and it affords Roelli the opportunity to get exactly the kind of milk he wants with the right protein and fat components for his cheese. 23 people work at the Roelli factory and retail store, including three who join Roelli in the cheesemaking room.
In addition to the awards for his cheese, Roelli himself has earned the title of Master Cheesemaker, a rigorous certification that demands years of study and testing in the biology, chemistry, and production of cheese. "It's the highest form of our craft and education," Roelli says. One can consider it a natural extension of his upbringing, where hard work and excellence were family values. "Once you're committed to this lifestyle, it's like you want to be the best at what you do. That's my personality. If I'm gonna do it, I want to do it the best I possibly can."
Taste Dunbarton Blue and Red Rock from Roelli Cheese Haus!
Creamery photos courtesy of Roelli Cheese Haus.
