Uncommon Heroes

Monteverde Corporation was founded 60 years ago, in an isolated area of Costa Rica. The company has played a critical role in the development and economy of the community. Monteverde employs over 400 workers in its production and marketing of dairy products. In addition, 450 members, farm workers and their families depend on the company […]

Errico Auricchio’s family has been making Italian-style cheeses since 1877. Thirty years ago, Errico moved his family from Italy to the United States to start his own cheese company in Green Bay, Wisconsin, making asiago, grana, fontina, mozzarella, gorgonzola, parmesan, provolone and romano. “From the beginning, I had only one goal – to make great […]

This year, Sartori Company is celebrating its 75th anniversary, looking back on an award-studded history that dates to 1939, when Italian immigrant Paolo Sartori started making cheese in Wisconsin, USA. Among other things, Sartori Co. was a trailblazer in exporting its cheeses, and in 1970 was the first exporter of U.S. cheese to Japan… and […]

Swiss immigrant Ernest Buholzer began making Swiss cheese in southern Wisconsin in 1925, establishing a family cheesemaking business that continues to this day. Seven members of the Buholzer family now work together at Klondike Cheese Co., including President Ron Buholzer (the founder’s grandson), his brothers Dave and Steve, and fourth generation family members. The company […]

Argentina is the seventh largest cheese producer in the world, and cheese companies like Tregar, based in the northeast province of Santa Fe, help fulfil the nation’s love for a wide variety of cheeses. Pedro Garcia, owner, and his brothers Vicente and Florencio, have helped grow Tregar’s dairy interests from its humble beginnings when their […]

In 1949, Norberto Purtschert’s father Oskar left Switzerland for Ecuador with a specific two-year commission to make the Swiss cheeses he knew and loved from his homeland. But to Ecuadoreans, hard cheeses like gruyere were still eccentric, and didn’t immediately catch on. In fact, Oskar nearly gave up and left Ecuador, until Ecuadorean President Galo […]

In 2004 Giorgio Linguanti arrived on the shores of Port Phillip Bay in Melbourne, Australia. In only four years this young Sicilian went from not speaking a word of English to opening his own cheese shop and winning awards at the Royal Melbourne Show; he has won numerous awards since. Linguanti came to Melbourne looking […]

One of the best-known and well-loved cheese names in the United States is “Cabot,” a brand that evokes the farm families and rich cheese-making traditions of Vermont and the rolling rural countryside of the Northeast. While Cabot is best known as award-winning cheddar cheese, the Agri-Mark cooperative also offers a full array of cheeses, butter, […]

Call Mike McCloskey the ultimate innovator. A native of Pittsburgh who grew up in Puerto Rico, he earned a Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine from the University of Mexico City, completed a residency in Dairy Herd Health Production from U.C. Davis and then opened a dairy veterinary practice in Escondido, California. By the mid-1980s, he and […]

Architect by profession and restaurateur by passion, Emilio Karake is the Guatemala franchise owner for Italianni’s, a chain of casual, authentic Italian restaurants. After 10 years specializing in design and construction of commercial and corporate spaces, Karake in 2010 was offered an opportunity he couldn’t turn down. After an exhaustive, 90-day hands-on program, he acquired […]

As the chief executive of a U.S. company making Italian heritage cheeses, Neal Schuman is concerned about Europe’s campaign to gain exclusive rights to names like parmesan, asiago and mozzarella. So Schuman supports the work of the Consortium for Common Food Names. “I do believe that the European negotiating position is an attempt to try […]