Culture Magazine

50 culturecheesemag.com C H E E S E+ 202 2 or "SMOKED GOUDA ST YLE" in big letters, with "cheese alternative" in smaller font. At Tallman's store, vegan dairy products are kept in the Grocery department rather than at the specialty cheese counter, and she says the future of that placement really depends on how artisanal vegan wheels become. They're making headway, as Babaki exemplifies, but vegan brie doesn't exactly disrupt the factory farming model. "CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) are not the milk source of specialty cheese, small family farmers are," says Perry, "many of whom go to great lengths to ensure healthy regenerative soil and exemplary animal husbandry." Most of the operations covered in this magazine fit that description, with several carrying Certified HumaneⓇ status and others enacting carbon drawdown plans. A prime example is Shelburne Farms in Vermont, where historic land preservation is part of their business model. On top of sequestering tons of carbon in their landscape, they also maintain grasslands which their cows share with nesting bobolink and sparrow populations. Vegan alternatives to industrial commodity cheese (think: shredded mozzarella and cheddar) could have a wider effect than artisan analogs, especially if used in school cafeterias or fast-food chains. But even in that scenario, vegan brie may play an important role. In New York City's Essex Market, the entire case at Michaela Grob's cheese shop Riverdel is vegan. And while most of her customers are, too, she says about a third come in because they're lactose intolerant, avoiding cheese for other reasons, or just plain curious. "A lot of people realize they don't digest dairy well but still want their cheese," she says. Plant-based artisan options may be bringing folks who've avoided dairy for years back to the counter— something the whole industry can get excited about. FARM TO TABLE "Right now, our goal is to share the stage with animal milk, butter, and cheese," says Miyoko Schinner, founder of dairy-free brand Miyoko's Creamery, which occupies shelf space in roughly 30,000 retailers around the country. Schinner, who has "Phenomenally Vegan" tattooed on her right bicep, is just as passionate about transforming animal husbandry as she is about bringing dairy farmers along for the ride. "Most small stakeholder farmers are third-, fourth-generation good people just working the land and doing what they've always done to create food for their communities," says Schinner. "Many are getting squeezed out and are barely scraping by." She recalled one farmer she met when picking up a calf from him to bring back to her Rancho Compasión animal sanctuary. The 75-year-old was shutting down operations because he wasn't making money, and his devastation broke Schinner's heart. Schinner's team began research in 2019 that would eventually become Dairy Farm Transition (DFT), an organization that supports dairy farmers' exploration of alternative crops. "As a company paving the way for a new future of cheesemaking from plant milks, we thought it would be beautiful to help one of those "Cheeses that are coagulated with rennet have elasticity to them because of the manner in which the proteins connect. This is why lactic goat cheeses are not made in large formats, they will fall apart. In vegan alternatives, there is no coagulum, nothing to cheddar or press. It doesn't stretch or knot together. Unless you start adding gums, stabilizers, and emulsifiers, your product texture would be like a lactic cheese, like a goat or cream cheese." —Yoav Perry on why you don't see more long-aged vegan cheeses RIND'S PAPRIK A VEGAN CHEESE AT RIVERDEL

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