When In Vermont: Cheddar Cheese Tour

Vermont loves it’s cheddar, and luckily our visit to Shelburne meant a visit to the cheese making facility. Shelburne Farms is home to an organic closed-loop cheese making operation.

125 Brown Swiss cows call the farm home where they are fed and rotated quickly on sections of pasture. This not only means that the cows are grass fed, but allow the farm to eliminate pesticides and herbicides and reduce fuel for machinery and crops. The cows are milked twice a day at the dairy and that milk is used that day in the cheese.

The calves were awesome. I felt bad fooling them into thinking my hands were vessels for milk.

The whey, a bi-product, drained during production is used to help fertilize the grass that the cows feed on. In addition to the use of the manure, creates the continuous replenishing loop.