Thomas Cox has always been a goat nerd. He started raising them in 1990 when he was just 11 years old and participating in the National Institute of Food and Agriculture's 4-H program. That meant feeding goats, milking goats, and getting them bred by bucks with good pedigrees, which is how he met Barbara Brooks of Seal Cove Farm in Maine. Brooks was one of the women who ignited the American artisan cheese movement of the 1970s, crafting small batches of raw milk, handmade chevre from her home herd. Seal Cove turned 50 this year, and Brooks decided it was finally time to sell the business and retire.
Despite spending 18 years as an inspector for the Maine Department of Agriculture and United States Food and Drug Administration, Cox kept his family's small herd of goats. He and his wife Julie made batches of cheese for themselves and enrolled their children in 4-H. While recovering from surgery in 2023, Cox started wondering if the family goats should have grander ambitions. He began working on a business plan for a home goat cheese business, or as Julie puts it, "He had too much time on his hands to think and I'd sit there and say, uh huh, uh huh. I was worn down." That's how the Coxes became Seal Cove's new owners in April.
"We realized we had both met Barbara in the past," Julie Cox says. "It started to feel like, oh gosh, this is meant to be." She did an externship on Seal Cove's farm while in veterinary technician school. In conversations with Brooks, she "saw that Seal Cove was focused on the animals. Happy, healthy goats make good cheese. Everything was done by hand, not extruded through machines."
Seal Cove is best known for its perfectly bright, tangy, and creamy chevre, or fresh goat cheese. We've been fans of Seal Cove's herbed and dill and garlic chevre for a long time, and just added a breakfast-ready blueberry version and a zippy pink peppercorn flavor to our collection. "We're not changing anything at this point," Thomas Cox says, "we're just running the business—or it's running us."
It's been an adjustment for the Coxes, growing their flock from 20-odd goats to a current milking herd of 75, with plans to milk 150 goats by 2028. They're focused on perfecting Brooks' recipes for chevre and feta before they start working on her hard cheeses, and the demand for chevre has kept them busy. Cox says he could milk 50 more goats right now and turn all their milk into chevre—if he had more hours in the day.
Making Seal Cove chevre is a three day process. First they pasteurize and culture 150 gallons of milk in a large vat. The next day they separate the curds and let them hang in a cloth bag to drain. On the third day they mold the curds by hand into individual portions that are designed to look like wee wheels of cheese. As soon as they finish one batch of chevre, the Coxes start another. They've been tasting and taking notes with a scientist's dedication to make sure each batch lives up to their standards. "An industry colleague once told me, 'if it doesn't taste good, throw it out.' That's one hard lesson we've learned," Thomas Cox says. "It's three days' work and a few thousand dollars of cheese, but it's not worth compromising your reputation."
They don't just tend goats and make cheese every day. The Coxes also give veterinary school students from the nearby University of Maine hands-on experience working with goats, between four and eight of them each day, learning the ins and outs of dairy goat management. That's important for Cox. "We do lots of animal husbandry things they'll need to know as vets," he says. "I want them to know the right way. Technology is great but can also be a disservice, like for students who've only seen a robotic milker but don't know how to milk a goat by hand." Cox is a licensed judge with the American Dairy Goat Association for goat shows, and he wants to ensure the next generation has the skills they need to tend healthy goats and make great cheese.
It's a labor of love, but everything in artisan cheese is. Thomas Cox is proud that an iconic Maine business can stay in local Mainers' hands. "We felt like Seal Cove is something we can be part of and believe in," he says. Julie Cox adds: "And we're still married!"
Try Seal Cove's amazing chevre!
Photos courtesy of Seal Cove Farm.
