|
Roellis returning to roots in cheesemaking
(Wisconsin State Journal, The (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Oct. 6--More than 16 years after closing the family plant, the Roellis are back making cheese again.
David Roelli and his son Christopher reopened the 104-year-old facility, located at 15982 Highway 11 about halfway between the villages of Shullsburg and Gratiot, Aug. 2 after spending more than $250,000 on updates.
"We set it up as a micro plant, " he said. "Our vat is only 300 gallons. It 's real small. ... Our focus here is to go to the more artisan cheese. " Roelli Cheese will be featured at today 's Cheesefest in Shullsburg, about 60 miles southwest of Madison.
With a capacity to produce about 84,000 pounds of cheese per year, the Roellis are hoping to get in on Wisconsin 's booming specialty industry. The state set a record for cheese production in 2006 at 2.5 billion pounds, according to numbers released this week by the state. Much of the growth was attributed to the specialty sector which grew 7.2 percent from 361 million pounds in 2005 to 387 million pounds last year.
Roelli also hopes to attract people to the plant with a new viewing room that will allow them to see the cheese process. "Nowadays, plants are becoming sterile and unreachable, " he said. "We set this up so somebody can watch what we 're doing and talk to us. "
For now, the Roellis are making mostly Cheddar that "leans toward the commodity side " until they can hone their cheesemaking skills. Christopher Roelli will be the primary cheesemaker at the plant but they are also working with master cheesemaker Ron Sullivan on Swiss cheese.
Developing specialty cheese will be a return to the roots of Dave 's grandfather, Adolph Roelli. The Swiss immigrant came to Shullsburg in the 1920s to take a job as cheesemaker at the plant, which was then Hicks Cheese Coop. Dave 's father Walter Roelli would eventually take over the business and while Adolph made brick, Limburger and Swiss cheeses, that changed when Walter installed a vat that could hold 30,000 pounds of milk.
That automatically put us into the commodity cheese business with hardly any flexibility, " Dave Roelli said. "Which probably led to the downfall of it. Because by the time we closed it in '91 the equipment was pretty well used up. "
The Roelli family, which includes Dave 's brothers Paul and Gary, also runs milk hauling and farm supply businesses. They plan to sell most of their cheese at the on-site cheese shop, which remained open when the plant closed, but they are also considering distributing in suburban Chicago and other metropolitan areas.
For the family, it 's a chance to get back to the job they love most.
"The smell, the taste, the feel of actually making the product, gets so ingrained in you, " Dave Roelli said. "I missed it terribly. Getting back into it is really satisfying. "
To see more of The Wisconsin State Journal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.wisconsinstatejournal.com.
Copyright (c) 2007, The Wisconsin State Journal
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
|
Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO West, September 16-18, 2008. Los Angeles, California.
