Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/1479440
46 culturecheesemag.com E N T E R TA I N I N G 202 2 D ecades later, he can still recall standing in the facility in greater Mexico City, absorbing the complexity of a multi- step production process to put a finished food product on store shelves. In high school he considered pursuing a career as a doctor, but he couldn't shake his experience that day at the manufacturing plant. So, Gutierrez Cruz found a food engineering program at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City. "I'm not a guy who wants to be in the library or at a computer," he says, to explain why a medical career ultimately didn't make sense. "I like to have freedom." Gutierrez Cruz had never made ice cream and didn't have a specific product or food in mind when he enrolled in college. But soon after, his father bought a dairy farm about two hours north of Mexico City—Gutierrez Cruz had an idea for what to do with the milk. With his dad, he launched Quesos Krava, a cheesemaking business originally based in the capital city that later relocated to the farm in the small and largely rural community of Polotitlán. It marked his entry into the world of cheese and launched a career path that would later take him to the heart of Dairyland, USA, where he would become one of the industry's up-and-coming stars. Quesos Krava started small in 2010 and grew steadily. By the third year, they were producing panela, Manchego, cotija, Oaxaca, and provolone. But when an economic crisis hit Mexico in 2017, they began to lose customers and encountered supplier issues. Gutierrez Cruz secured a loan but it wasn't enough. He and his father sold the company, and he started thinking about his next steps. While on vacation in Wisconsin, Gutierrez Cruz met a creamery manager who offered him a job. Eager to settle In elementary school, Ricardo Gutierrez Cruz's class toured an ice cream manufacturing plant. While his peers were distracted by the prospect of trying various flavors, Gutierrez Cruz was struck by the mechanics of it all. "I was surprised it was like, 60 percent air in the ice cream," he recalls. "I said, 'Wow, they are selling us bubbles.'"