Company History

I took my first cheesemaking class in June '07. It was a two-day course held in a very cramped 12' x 24' room with about 24 people and some very interesting personalities. I learned enough to know that I wanted to learn more. So, I signed up for another class that was held six weeks later. This was a three-day, advanced cheesemaking class with only 12 students. Our instructor was Neville McNaughton, a remarkable cheesemaker from New Zealand who now resides in St. Louis, MO. The class was all about the chemistry of cheesemaking. I fell in love with the whole process and came home telling Jim that I had to do this. It simply took hold of me. It was as though I had no choice or any decision to make. I simply knew that this was what I was to be doing with my life.

So, we set about converting the lower level of the barn into a license creamery. We designed the creamery to be as green as possible, using recycled newspapers and blue jeans for insulation and installing a geo thermal unit to heat and cool the creamery. We created a marsh in our back field where all the water and whey from our cheesemaking process is drained. The acquadic plants and animal life process the proteins and by products, purifying the water before it goes back out onto the field. We accomplished this rather remarkable feat in just three months and were licensed the first week of October 2007. Two weeks later I entered my cheese in the National Cheese Competition sponsored by the American Dairy Goat Association and won two Best of Show, two First Place and one Second Place. My second place award was second to one of my first place awards, so my brother tells me I beat myself!

It has been the most wonderful journey of my life since then and I have never looked back. We are now producing 400 - 500 pounds of cheese a week and plan on building an aging room to begin making aged goat cheeses. My current goal is to travel to France to study under an English speaking cheesemaker to learn the traditional European methods of aging goat cheese.

~Jean Mackenzie,
Founder and President of Mackenzie Creamery