Welcome Cheese Enthusiasts!

I am glad that you found this page and I hope that you will enjoy this blog, which will be part “cheese journal,”part “enjoying / cooking with cheese,”and part “cheese travel journal,”as my job takes me around the country and I explore regional cheeses.

Just so you feel like you know me a bit better, here is some background on me:

Ever since I started my very first job behind a 45-foot gourmet cheese counter, I have been in love with cheese. The year was 1984, and delicatessens had not yet found their way into every corner supermarket, in fact, the next cheese counter of equal size was some 25 miles away. We had no idea at that time how revolutionary such a cheese counter was. I guess the lines of customers should have been a clue that we were doing something special.

I have just celebrated my thirty-fifth year in the cheese industry. I have been truly blessed to spend my entire working career working with cheese. I worked my way up from a clerk behind this counter, all the way up to Director of Service Delicatessens for Nob Hill Foods; a 29 store supermarket chain in Northern California. As Director, it was my job to add gourmet cheese counters to the stores; all the way from construction, up to selection of products for the case. We started working with an importer that was airfreighting product to our store from France and confirmed we were doing something special when we found our cheese counter on the front page of the newspaper, and customers were again lining up.

In 2006, I decided to shift gears and look at the cheese industry from a different angle: as a Specialty Cheese Broker (Yes, that is a real job!). A great friend of mine owned a food brokerage in the Bay Area, and had just lost his account manager that handled his specialty cheese lines. When he asked me if I was interested, I jumped at the opportunity. In selling cheese as a broker, I was able to sell the cheeses from all over the world and found myself once again in a teaching role; helping retailers and distributors select and merchandise their cheese, while continuing to train their sales force.

2013 led to another chapter in my “cheese journey” as I accepted a position as a Regional Manager for Lactalis Group, third-generation, family-owned dairy company founded in Laval, France. Lactalis quickly understood my passion for cheese and wanted to encourage it. The company agreed to sponsor my attendance of the 2014 American Cheese Society’s Certified Cheese Professional exam…on one condition: I would turn the info I learned into a training book on Protected Designation of Origin (PDO). I passed the exam and became 1 of 101 Certified Cheese Professionals in the State of California (about 450 across the country as of 2014). 

In 2018, Lactalis changed my title and scope of responsibility to lead its efforts in Cheese Education and Retail Merchandising across the country. The following blog entries are my Cheese Traveler “journal” …so come along and enjoy!