St. Louis, MO-
By DeliMarket Staff
1.30.13
Schnucks Markets, Inc. announced that celebrated cheese maker Sid Cook attended the 11th Annual St. Louis Food & Wine Experience to showcase some of his company’s award-winning cheeses. The event took place at the Chase Park Plaza on Friday, Jan. 25th offering three days of alluring wine and cheese pairings benefiting the Repertory theatre of St. Louis.
To say that Cook is well-known in the cheese world is a vast understatement – he’s been featured on the cover of the Wall Street Journal and cheese aficionados across the country sing his praise. The fourth-generation cheese maker literally grew up in a cheese factory and began making cheese at 11. Cooks unique cheesy innovations have earned him five awards at the World Cheese Contest in London last year. He currently reigns as the most decorated cheese maker in the world.
The Carr Valley team specializes in Artisan cheeses including American originals like the award-winning Apple Smoked Cheddar with an acidic finish tempered with paprika. “Our four manufacturing plants create nearly five million pounds of cheese each year, a third of which is sold directly to consumers through eight stores. The rest is sold to customers with a variety of needs from grocery stores to top chefs,” Cook said.
“We’ve created 80 different cheeses,” Cook says. “We now have 120 employees and buy (milk) from 30 to 40 different family farms – supporting about 140 families with our operation.”
While in St. Louis, Cook met with Schnucks cheese experts, sharing information they could pass on to customers. “I like talking about what we do and how we have really transformed the artisan business by the new cheeses we’ve come up with,” Cook said. “We have also recently invested in a new blue cheese factory within the last year to further broaden our selection. In addition, we also do several hard cheeses and have plans to start doing more soft cheeses over the next few years.”
“Cheese is a very age-old thing. It’s been around for tens of thousands of years. In other parts of the world, cheese varieties are very well-known. However in America, it’s Cheddar, Monterey Jack, Colby, Swiss and Blue Cheese… there is so much more out there a cheese maker can do other than six or eight varieties and the idea of treading on new ground and making new flavor profiles and new products is exciting,” Cook added.
