{"id":5267,"date":"2019-09-19T12:10:37","date_gmt":"2019-09-19T16:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tourismebrome-missisquoi.ca\/missiska-cheese-promoting-an-exceptional-milk\/"},"modified":"2019-09-19T12:10:37","modified_gmt":"2019-09-19T16:10:37","slug":"missiska-cheese-promoting-an-exceptional-milk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tourismebrome-missisquoi.ca\/en\/blogue\/missiska-cheese-promoting-an-exceptional-milk\/","title":{"rendered":"Missiska cheese : promoting an exceptional milk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Breeder and now cheese producer, Caroline Pelletier truly loves animals. Her Jersey cows are her entire life and the young entrepreneur has decided that everybody should have the chance to taste their milk. With this in mind, in April 2018, she opened the Fromagerie-boutique Missiska, in the town of Bedford. There, she sells her Jersey cows\u2019 milk, but also other byproducts such as yogurt, cheese curds, fresh and fine cheeses.<\/p>\n

When I arrive at the Fromagerie-boutique Missiska, I\u2019m told that Caroline is upstairs. I go up a few steps to access the laboratory which is located above the boutique and the transformation space. The owner welcomes me with her lab coat on and a net covering her hair. She is looking down on some Petri dishes. \u201cI\u2019m preparing my bacterial cultures, I\u2019ll get changed and meet you outside on the terrace.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\nPhoto : Patrice Didier<\/p>\n

While Caroline finishes what she was doing, her aunt, who works in the boutique space, invites me to taste some of their products. I didn\u2019t hesitate for a second. When Caroline joins me, we go outside to a picnic table where we sit down together. It\u2019s a nice September day and the young woman is really happy to be able to take advantage of the warm sun before going back to her cheese production tasks.<\/p>\n

You see this entrepreneur is always busy. When she isn\u2019t transforming milk, she\u2019s at the farm taking care of her herd or working on marketing her products. What gives her the energy to pursue her projects? It\u2019s her passion for Jersey cows.<\/p>\n

Caroline was born on a farm and for as long as she can remember, she\u2019s always worked there. \u201cI built my herd of Jersey cows along with my dad\u2019s herd. I\u2019ve been raising them for twenty years now. I formed my herd from generation to generation,\u201d explains this agronomy graduate with a concentration in animal science. \u201cEven while I was studying away from home, I came back every weekend to take care of my cows. And, when I could, I would milk them every morning and every evening before going to school or to work. I have a thirteen-year-old cow, Vicky! She is still in gestation and produces milk! We have a fine herd of cows that really stands out from the others.\u201d<\/p>\n

From Milk to Cheese<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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\nPhoto : Patrice Didier<\/p>\n

Caroline thought it was a shame that her cows\u2019 milk, \u201cimpeccable and exceptional,\u201d would be wasted by entering Quebec\u2019s milk transformation process. Therefore, to give it an added value and to have people taste it, she had the idea of setting up a cheese dairy.<\/p>\n

Today, about 30% of the Missiska Farm production is sent to its same name cheese dairy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a special milk, it tastes like heaven. It has 5% fat; people can\u2019t find this anywhere else,\u201d she notes. \u201cI\u2019ve been drinking it with my coffee and eating my cereal in the morning with it for the past 10 years; it\u2019s extraordinary!\u201d<\/p>\n

From this milk, she also wanted to create other products, like cheese. \u201cEspecially with the 22 nearby vineyards. We wanted to add a cheese dairy offer to the Route des vins,\u201d she says. To accomplish this, this young farmer had to learn all about the process while building her business plan. She also benefitted from the expertise at the Centre d\u2019expertise fromag\u00e8re du\u00a0Qu\u00e9bec, in St-Hyacinthe, to determine which products she would develop.<\/p>\n

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\nPhoto : Patrice Didier<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked them how I could give the best added value to the milk my cows produce and how I could stand out in the Quebec cheese market. In Quebec, there\u2019s a shortage of lactic curd. Our Jersey Royal cheese was inspired by French cheeses such as the Saint-Andr\u00e9, the Chaource or the D\u00e9lice de\u00a0Bourgogne. They\u2019re triple cream cheeses, but not the Jersey Royal because our milk is rich enough to be left as such. What\u2019s special about the Jersey Royal, is that it\u2019s made with whole curdled lactic milk like goats\u2019 milk. It is carefully poured by hand, There\u2019s nothing like it in Quebec.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ambitious and determined, Caroline is committed to conquer the heart and stomachs of Quebec citizens with her products. She\u2019s quite driven.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started big. Our goal is not to have to work on adding more space in five years to expand the business,\u201d she confides. \u201cWe hope to manage our growth from within. We took on a lot when we started, but we\u2019ve already started thinking about phase two. In the future, we would like to offer, Jersey veal at the boutique and offer meat products from our farm.\u201d<\/p>\n

This passionate Jersey cow lover certainly has a lot of ideas to give an added value to her animals and to attract other fans such as herself!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Breeder and now cheese producer, Caroline Pelletier truly loves animals. Her Jersey cows are her entire life and the young […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":5049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gourmet_delights"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tourismebrome-missisquoi.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tourismebrome-missisquoi.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tourismebrome-missisquoi.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tourismebrome-missisquoi.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tourismebrome-missisquoi.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tourismebrome-missisquoi.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tourismebrome-missisquoi.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tourismebrome-missisquoi.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tourismebrome-missisquoi.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tourismebrome-missisquoi.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}