814-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, June 6, 1998
Leßaysville Cheese
Enterprise On
CAROLYN N. MOYER
Bradford Co. Correspondent
LERAYSVILLE (Bradford
Co.) As you roam the back
roads of Pennsylvania, the last
thing you might expect to find is a
world class cheese manufacturer.
But if you follow the bright yel
low and white signs to the noith
eastem part of Bradford County,
up a dirt road, you’ll see a small
white building, not much larger
than a small house, which is the
Leßaysville Cheese Factory.
Founded as a fanner coopera
tive, the Leßaysville Cheese Fac
tory got its start when the local
milk processing plants stopped
accepting milk in cans.
“It was built in 1976 by the
Amish community,” said Jim
Amory, owner of the plant. “There
was no other market for the canned
milk.”
The factory was built much like
the old creameries. A dumping sta
tion and weigh scale still stands in
one comer of the plant, right next
to an oversized dishwasher made
especially for the heavy milk cans.
“It took one year to build the
place,” Amory noted. “It was done
with all volunteer labor.”
At first the only product that was
made at what was then called
the Pleasant Valley Cheese House
was a raw milk cheddar with a
black wax coating.
The Amish workers learned
their trade from the old-time
cheese makers and had a lot of help
from a program sponsored by the
University of Wisconsin. When
the University program ceased to
exist, the old-timers were their
main source of information.
The plant also operated for the
first five years with no electricity,
no phone, and with an old boiler as
CAROLYN MOYER
Bradford Co. Correspondent
Paul and Carolyn Moyer are surrounded by their children,
Gregory, age 4; Charlie, age 5, and Andrew, age 2. The fami
ly lives on Ty-Ly View Farm In Tioga County. Carolyn has
been a for Farming fpr four years.
the only source of heat
“All the agitating was done by
hand,” noted Amory.
Despite problems with consis
tency, the gourmet cheese was
marketed as far away as Bloom
ingdale’s in Manhattan.
As times changed there were a
series of non-Amish managers of
the Amish cooperative. Amory
was the last of the siring of
managers.
“1 started here in 1987 and
changed the name to Up Country
Cheese House,” said Amory.
Amory, who was originally
from Massachusetts, and his wife,
who was raised in California’s San
Fernando Valley, moved into the
area in the 19705.
“I was interested in the econom
ic development of the area,” be
noted, “when I started, I did
research on the regulations
involved in making cheese.”
For the next five years, he
struggled to make the cooperative
work.
“We never had the right amount
of milk. We always had too much
or too little,” he explained.
Another dilemma of the cheese
maker is the fact that the milk
supply tends to be the highest in
the spring, when the demand for
the cheese is the greatest in the
winter.
“The milk bills were the greatest
when no one buys cheese,” he said.
To even out die ups and downs,
Amory suggested that they start
making cheeses other than Ched
dar, which must be aged a mini
mum of four months, when it’s
considered mild, to a year or more,
when it’s considered sharp.
So they started making a Jack
cheese that can be ready in a month
and began selling cheese curds
which can be sold the same day
Factory: An Award-Winning
a Back Country Road
The finished product: Jim Amory poses with the variety of cheeses that are sold
K* "* s s,ore » including the award winning pepper Cheddar and the Pennsylvania
J3CK cneeses.
that they’re made.
In spite of the changes, Amory
still struggled to make the coopera
tive work. Finally in 1992, the
cooperative was dissolved and
Amory took on the responsibility
of owning the plant. Two Amish
workers, David Miller and Free
man Mast, currently fine-tune the
cheese and handle most of the pro
cessing decisions.
Now, because there are no lon
ger any Amish farmers shipping
milk in the area, the milk comes in
a steady stream from Progressive
Dairy Cooperative. In effect, they
are dipping into the milk stream as
they need milk. What isn’t used by
them goes to Leprino Foods,
which operates in nearby Sayre.
Now they have expanded their
cheese making expertise to include
other ethnic cheeses including
Havarti, Portelet, and Sommelier.
They have also received nation
al recognition for two of their
cheeses. Dave Miller received
first-place honors from the Ameri
can Cheese Society for his pepper
Cheddar, and a former cheese
house worker, Harvey Yoder, was
awarded a second place award for
his Pennsylvania jack, in 1995.
Marketing- is one of Amory’s
biggest challenges now. He has a
solid footing in several gourmet
markets, local stores, a mail-order
business and a small store at the
front of the factory. Still, he would
like to expand ids sales.
“I work with the Pennsylvania
Association for Sustainable Agri
culture,” said Amory. “they put a
lot of effort into marketing. Get
ting the money and rinding reliable
traditional taste of country goodness...
markets is tough. It’s like building
a canoe while learning to paddle it
you will make mistakes.”
He also gamers support from
multiple technical support people
in the cheese making industry.
Although the Pennsylvania
Department of Agriculture is
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