| Winter 2025 Newsletter |
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| Table of Contents |
| Letter from the Executive DirectorAnnouncementsOpportunitiesCall to Action |
| Letter from the Executive Director |
| Happy New Year, Friends! As 2025 begins, it heralds a milestone year for WASCA: our 10th anniversary. Founded in 2015 to support Washington State’s licensed cheesemaker community and rally around it industry members and supporting businesses, as well as cheese-loving enthusiasts, the Washington State Cheesemakers Association has evolved slowly, steadily, over the past decade. As the organization has developed across the years, our founding mission has remained the same: to support Washington’s cheesemakers through Education, Promotion, and Networking. Recognized as a 501(c)(6) non-profit association, WASCA’s community of members has grown to include 28 licensed cheesemakers (out of 49 currently licensed to process cheese in the state), 13 businesses, 6 corporate sponsors, and 13 enthusiasts. Our membership spans all four corners of the state and beyond, although the bulk of members are concentrated along the Interstate-5 corridor in Western Washington. Cheesemaker members produce more than 100 varieties of cheese from raw and pasteurized cow, goat, and sheep’s milks in creameries ranging from 200-square-foot make rooms to 1000-square-foot-plus facilities. In 2024, we completed our first-ever grant project, a three-year USDA Farmers Market Promotion Program grant that funded $334,795 worth or educational, marketing, and business-driving programming, in addition to putting $138,848 in matching funds and labor to work for our state’s cheesemakers. This year we do not have any grant funding, and in all truth we are facing a budget deficit. Despite the financial challenges the organization faces, we have an opportunity this year to refine WASCA’s vision for the future, hone its operational plan, and gain a better, deeper understanding of how best to serve our cheesemaking and cheese-loving community in this great state. As you will read below, we kick off the year with our in-person Annual Member Meeting in Woodinville later this month, our virtual Cheesemaker Chat series will continue in February, and we will apply for new grant funding in March or April when the USDA opens applications for the season. We will look to continue uplifting and giving voice to Washington’s cheesemakers all year long. Finally, there is a call for action and deep thought at the end of this missive that I hope you will consider. But to start 2025 off right, please join me in raising a toast to our cheesemakers, their cheeses, and the community this little cheese guild has wrought. Cheers to you this year!–Courtney C. Johnson, PhD, ACS CCP, ACS CCSEExecutive Director, Washington State Cheesemakers AssociationWashingtonCheese@gmail.com |
| Announcements |
| RSVP Now: WASCA Annual Member Meeting is January 31 |
| For the second year in a row, WASCA’s annual member meeting will take place at 21 Acres Center in Woodinville, WA. All members and stakeholders are invited to attend. What: WASCA Annual Member MeetingWhen: Friday, January 31, 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.Where: 21 Acres Center, 13701 NE 171st St, Woodinville, WA 98072How: RSVP on EventBrite by visiting the link below. The meeting agenda will be released soon. Items on the docket include announcing the results of the Board of Directors election (more information on that below), presentation of the treasurer’s report, and planning for the rest of 2025. There will also be an informal happy hour after the meeting (location TBA). As in 2024, the annual meeting will be held in-person only again, but meeting notes will be shared with the membership at large after the meeting. As last year, 21 Acres Center has kindly offered their space to us at no cost for the meeting, and we are deeply grateful for their generosity. Please note that 21 Acres only has about 20 parking spots available to us for the meeting. Attendees are encouraged to carpool, use public transit, or park off-campus and walk or bike to the venue. |
| RSVP to Attend the Meeting |
| Upcoming: WASCA Board of Directors Election |
| This year there are two open positions on the WASCA Board of Directors. These positions are open to licensed cheesemaker members who have been nominated by WASCA members and the board Nominating Committee. This year’s election will take place electronically, and results will be announced during the Annual Member Meeting on January 31. Election ballots will go out to all voting members on Thursday, January 9. Ballots must be submitted for counting by Thursday, January 30, at 8:00 p.m. The Licensed Cheesemaker positions on WASCA’s board are three-year terms. WASCA’s board is made up of 5 licensed cheesemaker positions and 2 appointed industry member positions. Cheesemaker directors are elected by a majority-vote election of the organization’s voting membership. As a reminder, only licensed cheesemaker members have voting rights in WASCA matters. Patti Ciatto (Fantello Farmstead Creamery, Enumclaw) is just completing her term and is not seeking re-election. We thank you for your service, Patti! Lorrie Conway (Conway Family Farms, Camas) is also completing a three-year term, but she is seeking re-election for a second term. In addition to Lorrie’s bid for re-election, Stacy Thomas (Clover Mountain Dairy, Chewelah) has been nominated to fill the second opening on the board. You can read more about Lorrie and Stacy below. |
Lorrie Conway Lorrie Conway operates Conway Family Farms LLC, with her husband, Shaun. Along with their daughters, Ashley and Amber, they have raised Nubian goats and Border Leicester sheep on their five acres for more than three decades. Having built the farm from the ground up themselves, Conway Family Farm is a Grade A Dairy and a WSDA-licensed ice cream and cheese processing facility. Lorrie was asked to serve on the WSDA board defining and eliminating barriers to entry for small dairy farms in 2005. In addition, she and Shaun testified in 2006 at Washington State Legislative hearings in favor of the ability for small farmers to safely produce fluid raw milk.Lorrie and Shaun were recognized in 2006 as Western Region SARE Patrick Madden Award finalists for Sustainable Agriculture for their efforts in sharing their love of small-scale, sustainable agriculture with the public through e-mails, farm visits and tours, phone calls, community events and speaking at conferences. In 2014, Conway Family Farm was featured in Farm & Ranch Living as “The Prettiest Place in the Country.” Lorrie’s education is in business management, which she combines with her lifetime experience of farming. The Conways’ farm is an ever-changing model as the family has grown and been challenged by the demands of off-farm, full-time work. Yet the “family” aspect of the farm remains paramount. Although Ashley and Amber have grown up and moved away, the farm is small enough that Lorrie and Shaun alone do the management and production of their value-added products. Lorrie has been a member of WASCA’s Board of Directors since 2022 and has served as the board Treasurer since 2023. Stacy Thomas  A native of Eastern Washington, Stacy grew up in a family of milk haulers and is a third-generation milk hauler himself. He joined the U.S. Coast Guard when he turned 17, and soon found himself stationed on Lake Michigan in “America’s Dairyland,” Wisconsin! It’s here where Stacy met his future wife, Virginia, and where their first date was to a local cheese factory. Stacy and Virginia were married and continued to transfer about the country, but Stacy always had a love for the dairy industry and no matter where he was stationed, he would seek out local dairy farmers and cheesemakers to learn from. In 2010 Stacy and Virginia bought 40 acres of raw land north of Spokane and would spend the next decade building it into a small dairy farm. When Stacy retired from the military in 2020, Clover Mountain Dairy was founded.They began selling vat pasteurized glass bottled milk, but transitioned to making cheese in 2022. They currently make Cheddar, Feta, Monterey Jack, Pepper Jack, and Gouda. They milk a small herd of NZ Jerseys once a day seasonally and focus on high-quality milk to create the best cheese. The cows are 100% grass-fed and graze rotationally during the grazing season. Calves are raised with the cows 24/7 the first six weeks, then separated in a group at night, and reunited with cows after morning milking. Calves are weaned at five months. Grazing, calf-sharing, and seasonal once a day milking allow Stacy and Virginia to have the work life balance they desire while maximizing herd health and farm profit. Other farm enterprises include beef sales and hauling milk. Cheeses are sold locally in Northeast Washington. Always wanting to learn more and network with other cheesemakers, Stacy is proud to be a member of WASCA! |
| Save the Date: Next Cheesemaker Chat February 18 |
| All current WASCA members will soon receive an invitation to RSVP for the next Cheesemaker Chat, a conversation with Andy Hatch of Uplands Cheese (Dodgeville, WI), on Tuesday, February 18, at 5:00 p.m. PST. Andy Hatch is co-owner and head cheesemaker at Uplands Cheese. He and his team make just two types of raw cow’s milk cheese, both seasonal: spruce bark-wrapped soft-ripened washed-rind cheese Rush Creek Reserve, and the most-awarded cheese in American history, natural-rind cooked-pressed cheese Pleasant Ridge Reserve. Over the past year Andy and his team have gone through the process of upgrading their small creamery to meet the demands of a medium-scale business—a rarity in the American cheese landscape, and particularly among artisanal producers. Join WASCA Education Committee Chair Jessica Gigot in this online conversation with Andy about the process of growing his creamery as a national brand while maintaining the quality and integrity of an artisanal, hand-made cheese. Cheesemaker Chats is an online series of hourlong conversations with a guest speaker on topics relevant to cheesemakers and cheese professionals. The series is open to all current members (not just cheesemakers!). Chats are recorded and the recordings made available to all members after each installation. |
| Oregon Cheesemaker Education Day is January 25 |
| The Oregon Cheese Guild’s annual Cheesemaker Education Day runs this year from 8:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. on Saturday, January 25, at Oregon State University. The schedule is full of relevant topics from subject matter experts for success in 2025. Here’s what you’ll see there:The Squeeze on Cheese with Felice Thorpe: how inflation is affecting the artisan cheese industry and how to use pricing and promotion to stay profitableThe Traceability Rule and Regulatory Update with Joy Waite-Cusic and Karel Smit: the latest on the rule and how cheesemakers are planning to manage itCreating a Unique Cheese – Cultures and Coagulants with Andrew Johnson from Dairy Connection: starter cultures and adjuncts; animal, microbial and fermented produced coagulants; and the yeasts, molds, and bacteria that all help create unique flavors, textures, and appearancesOSU Pilot Plant Intro and Grad Student Project Rapid Fire Reports: all the cutting-edge goings-on at our state’s premier food science programDIY R&D: hear how Rogue Creamery problem-solves internally using their own trials and experimentsPacific Coast Coalition Dairy Business Innovation Initiative Update: this grant program is a game changer for dozens of participating dairy industry businessesEmployee Handbooks and Compliance for Small Producers: our legal partners at Davis Wright Tremaine are back to help with this timely infoCheese Paper Composition, Production, Printing, and Permeability with Maureen Cunnie from Fromagex Friday’s Hands-On Workshop: Understanding and Solving Defects Chances are you have experienced defects in your cheese. Whether it’s unwanted gas formation, mold or off flavors, all of these can be detrimental to your bottom line. Join us for this workshop where we will provide information about the most common defects and how to troubleshoot them. We will also explore the basics of sensory evaluation and how to evaluate a cheese. We will conduct sensory sessions by calibrating our palates to the five basic tastes and evaluate cheese samples for defects. Participants are encouraged to bring in their own cheeses for evaluation. Register for both the workshop and the education day at the link below. |
| Register for Cheesemaker Education Day |
| Apply Now for Cheese Competitions |
| Two major U.S. cheese competitions are or will soon be accepting registration. Awards are a great way to draw customer interest and industry name recognition, as well as a way to get technical feedback on your cheese. |
| United States Championship Cheese ContestAccepting registrations through January 31. Cheeses to be shipped by February 19 for judging March 4-6. Learn more or register your entries at the link below.US Championship Cheese ContestAmerican Cheese SocietyJudging & CompetitionOpen to all current ACS members, registration January 13 through March 26 (early bird registration through February 13). Cheeses to be shipped June 9-11, judged June 12-13. ACS will be hosting a webinar on January 13 about entering the competition. RSVP at link below.ACS J&C |
| FDA Sampling Assignment: Raw-Milk Cheeses |
| The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has begun a domestic sampling assignment to collect and test aged raw cow’s milk cheese for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (H5N1). The FDA will be collecting 300 samples of raw cow’s milk cheeses at random through the country through March 2025. Cheeses collected will have been aged at least 60 days. For more information about the sampling assignment, visit the FDA website. |
| FDA Website |
| Opportunities |
| Export Finance Assistance Webinar, January 16 |
| The WSDA is offering a webinar about export trade finance tools and technical assistance resources for producers interested in exporting their food products abroad. The webinar will be held online on Thursday, January 16, at 10:00 a.m. PST. To learn more and register, visit the Washington State Department of Commerce site. |
| WA State Dept of Commerce Website |
| Internal Auditing Workshop via WSU Extension, February 12 |
| The WSU Extension is offering a workshop on third-party audits, designed for small and very small food businesses. Thanks to a grant from the USDA NIFA Food Safety Outreach Program, the registration fee for this workshop is just $50. The workshop will take place on Wednesday, February 12, 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. at culiNEX (360 Corporate Drive N, Tukwila, WA 98188). To learn more and to register, visit the link below. |
| Register for the Workshop |
| Dairy Business Grants Awarded |
| Laurel’s Crown (Chelan) was one of three Washington dairy businesses to receive funding from the Pacific Coast Coalition Dairy Business Innovation Initiative (PCC-DBII) in their latest round of funding last fall. Laurel’s Crown joins a handful of other WASCA-member creameries who have received PCC-DBII funding over the past few years: Chimacum Valley Dairy (Chimacum), Clover Mountain Dairy (Chewelah), Fantello Farmstead Creamery (Enumclaw), and Lost Peacock Creamery (Olympia). While the coalition has not yet announced the first round of funding for 2025, we recommend signing up for their mailing list so you can find out as soon as the news is released. More information about the program, and contact information, is available on the PCC-DBII website. |
| PCC-DBII Website |
| A Call to Action |
| What do you want to see WASCA accomplish in 2025? How about over the next 5 and 10 years? We want to know! But we also need to know: how can we get you involved in making those things happen? Over the past four years, we have seen our member engagement dip to its lowest level ever. Our committees no longer have any members, and our newsletters and mailings are seeing lower and lower readership each time a message goes out. While we do have our second-ever Executive Director working to support the organization’s mission, that is not a full-time job and much of the administrative tasks of running a non-profit association fall to the Executive Director now that the board of directors has fully transitioned to playing an advisory role instead of an active leadership role in organizational matters. As an organization that has long prided itself on being volunteer-run, we seem to be at a crossroads on how to actually run the organization with no volunteers. This is hardly surprising in a time when folks are overworked and overstimulated, seeking work-life balance and trying to make ends meet. WASCA does not want to bombard our members with information and requests, but we also want to make sure we are serving our membership in the best possible way, working to accomplish our goals. As a reminder, WASCA’s mission is to support Washington State Cheesemakers through Education, Promotion and Networking. In 2024, we heard from a few folks that they wanted to see WASCA do more marketing on behalf of cheesemakers and play a larger role in effecting regulatory change in our state. That means we need folks who can put together marketing campaigns on a zero-dollar budget and folks who understand (or want to learn) how to interact with our county, state and federal regulators to help our cheesemakers be better able to do their work with fewer unnecessary roadblocks. At the same time as all this, we would be able to do more for our cheesemakers and our members with a strong reservoir of funds. We have learned that we qualify for very few funding sources as a 501(c)(6) operating in Washington, and grants are not guaranteed from cycle to cycle. How can we strengthen our financial standing and afford to do the things we want and must do to support our members and our community? How can you, as a WASCA member or one of our stakeholders, play a role in accomplishing our mission? Can you spend a few hours a month volunteering to revive one of our committees (Marketing, Membership, Grant Applications, Buying, History, Education & Regulations)? If volunteerism is not something you have time for, what other ways can you help us keep the car running – aside, of course, from the generous membership dues you pay each year and which help us to keep the metaphorical gas tank from running out? (And on that note — if you or your business is not yet a member, is it perhaps time to hop on board?) Outside of our small world at WASCA, many organizations that have long relied on volunteer support are finding volunteers few and far between. Non-profits and community groups are trying to understand the best way to keep things running short of hiring staff – which is only an option if you have stable financial support to fund those positions. It is an industry-wide issue, and we feel it acutely in our small corner. As we look forward to the next 10 years of WASCA, we are trying to craft an actionable and sustainable path forward. This will definitely be part of the conversation at our Annual Member Meeting on January 31, but even if you won’t attend the meeting, we would like you to let us know anyway. What ideas do you have for how we can work together for the common good? How can we invigorate you, our members and stakeholders, to play a more active role in support of our cheese and cheesemaking community at large? Put in a different way, since we are at the beginning of January: How will you resolve to support WASCA in 2025? Let us know what your thoughts are; send an email to Courtney and the Board of Directors at WashingtonCheese@gmail.com. |
| WASCA is proud to have the support of our corporate sponsor members! |