Beecher's Handmade Cheese is an artisan cheesemaker and retail shop based in the Pike Place Market, Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.. The company was founded by Kurt Beecher Dammeier in 2003, and was opened in the Pike Place Market after Dammeier obtained a storefront lease in the Market, which are rarely available. Because Dammeier had never been a cheesemaker, he sought out the assistance of Brad Sinko, who helped run a family cheese-making business in Oregon. A second location was opened in 2011 in the Flatiron neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City.
Unlike most artisan cheese makers, Beecher's mainly uses pasteurized milk and operates a high-volume modern production facility, with multiple farms supplying milk. When Beecher's encountered problems in guaranteeing the standard flavor of the milks they were using to make cheese, the company bought their own herds of dairy cattle and farms to ensure control of the cheese products from beginning to end. Beecher's uses various cheese cultures when mixing cheeses, so a cheddar cheese produced by Beecher's may use cultures not normally intended for cheddar cheese production.
Beecher's Pike Place Market cheese-making facility includes a café, which serves grilled cheese and other items, and a retail shop, which sells both Beecher's cheeses and others brands from local Pacific Northwest cheesemakers. The New York location is a much larger space. In addition to the production facility, café, and retail space, it also has a full-service restaurant downstairs referred to as The Cellar. Beecher's also manufactures and sells macaroni and cheese dishes (and other frozen sides), which have received praise in reviews from the national news media. Dammeier and his firm's cheeses have been featured on national television, including twice on The Martha Stewart Show and once on Oprah, with the "World's Best" Macaroni and Cheese featured as one of Oprah's "Favorite Things." A cookbook by Dammeier, Pure Flavor: 125 Fresh All-American Recipes From The Pacific Northwest, has been published, and incorporates recipes used to make various Beecher's products and dishes. In addition to their various business endeavors, Beecher's sponsors the Flagship foundation and Pure Food Kids project, an educational program to teach children in the Seattle public schools system about healthful diets.
Read more about Beecher's Handmade Cheese: Founding and History, Milk Supplies, Cheese and Food Manufacturing, Retail Sales and Cheese Shop, Macaroni and Cheese, Awards and Recognition, Pure Food Kids, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words beecher, handmade and/or cheese:
“When a nation’s young men are conservative, its funeral bell is already rung.”
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887)
“And those handmade presents that children often bring home from school: They have so much value! The value is that the child put whatever he or she could into making them. The way we parents respond to the giving of such gifts is very important. To the child the gift is really self, and they want so much for their selves to be acceptable, to be loved.”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)
“I may be able to spot arrowheads on the desert but a refrigerator is a jungle in which I am easily lost. My wife, however, will unerringly point out that the cheese or the leftover roast is hiding right in front of my eyes. Hundreds of such experiences convince me that men and women often inhabit quite different visual worlds. These are differences which cannot be attributed to variations in visual acuity. Man and women simply have learned to use their eyes in very different ways.”
—Edward T. Hall (b. 1914)