Sunny Ridge Wins Good Food Award
“It is truly an honor to be in great company, working with a great team at our creamery and on the farm – and in the company of exceptional independent cheesemakers and specialty producers.”
- Head Cheesemaker Veronica Pedraza
February 2022
Blakesville Creamery is thrilled to announce that they have won a 2022 Good Food Award for their semi-firm goat cheese Sunny Ridge — their first national award since the woman-owned and -operated cheesemaking facility opened in summer 2020.
Sunny Ridge is styled after the French cheese St. Nectaire and is washed with Is/Was Brewing Finer Points of Bad Behavior, a sour beer featuring Klug Farm peaches from Michigan. Washing Sunny Ridge in beer for the first few weeks of the 12-15 week ageing process helps break down the cheese interior, gives the rind a peach-colored glow, and imparts a fruity and slightly effervescent flavor. A natural ripening process helps further develop the cheese’s characteristic texture and flavor, which has been described as “bright, tangy, and musky with a minerally fruity funk” by Saxelby Cheesemongers.
Suggested beverage pairing with Sunny Ridge is a saison beer, such as Is/Was Brewing Will Be which is brewed with spelt and triticale and offers notes of mango, banana, and almond paste. For a special treat, Blakesville Creamery recommends using Sunny Ridge as a raclette substitute by melting the cheese over cooked potatoes and serving alongside pickles and cured meats.
Blakesville Creamery is under the leadership of Head Cheesemaker & General Manager Veronica Pedraza; Business Manager Juli Kaufmann; and Owner Lynde Uihlein. As a farmstead creamery, cheeses are made by hand on the same farm where the goats are raised and their milk is collected. The adjoining Blakesville Dairy Farm, also owned by Uihlein and led by Farm Manager Brent Foat and Herd Manager Whitney Sakal, humanely raises over 1000 goats using sustainable farming practices to yield the highest quality of milk for handmade artisan cheeses.
“We are especially grateful that the Good Food award recognized Blakesville Creamery and Dairy for a variety of accomplishments,” says Uihlein. “While making delicious cheese locally is our aim, it’s equally important to us that we treat our animals, our planet and each other as well as we are able.”
Adds Pedraza, “It is truly an honor to be in great company, working with a great team at our creamery and on the farm – and in the company of exceptional independent cheesemakers and specialty producers, both in Wisconsin and across the country.” The only other Wisconsin cheese producer to receive a 2022 Good Food Award is Uplands Cheese for their highly coveted Pleasant Ridge Reserve.
Blakesville Creamery’s award-winning Sunny Ridge can be found in restaurants and specialty food markets throughout the Midwest and New York, including Fromagination in Madison; Beautiful Rind and All Together Now in Chicago; France 44 in Minneapolis; The Rhined in Cincinnati; The Cheese Shop of Des Moines; and Saxelby Cheesemongers in New York City. Click here to find Blakesville cheese near you.
ABOUT THE 2022 GOOD FOOD AWARDS
The Good Food Awards celebrate the kind of food we all want to eat: tasty, authentic and responsible. Now in its twelfth year, awards are given to winners in 18 categories: beer, charcuterie, cheese, chocolate, cider, coffee, confections, drinks, elixirs, fish, grains, honey, oils (tasted & announced in the spring), pantry, pickles, preserves, snacks, and spirits. The Good Food Awards Seal, found on winning products, assures consumers they have found something exceptionally delicious that also supports sustainability and social good.
Each of the 2022 winners has demonstrated both a mastery of their craft and a commitment to maintaining exceptionally high social and environmental standards in their work. This year’s Good Food Award Winners hail from 39 states and Washington, D.C. Chosen in a blind tasting from thousands of entries before passing a further sustainability and social responsibility vetting process, nearly half of the Winners are first-time awardees. 56% of the Winners are woman-owned businesses and one in six are BIPOC-owned businesses. Across 18 categories, each recognized crafter demonstrated exceptional taste and a deep commitment to building a more sustainable, just food system.
Visit https://goodfoodfdn.org/awards/ for more about the Good Food Awards and a complete list of winners.