Monforte has made tremendous progress since the spring. Those of you who subscribe to our CSA program and those who are on our contact list have received email updates about all the news: the announcement of our new location, then the announcement of our new new location; the move into 49 Griffith Road, Stratford, that we’re also selling cheese from the new location; and everyone’s been invited to stop by and check out our progress.
Judging from some of the queries I’ve received, now’s a good time to recap.
We moved into our new location on July 1st. At the dairy, we're selling sheep cheddar (plain, smoked, organic garlic scapes, chipotle pepper, sundried tomato and wasabi) and occasionally some goat cheese (a lovely little thing called Night Satin). These are the same products Ruth is selling every Saturday at the St. Lawrence Market (north side). We’re also selling these cheeses at the Stratford Farmers Market on Saturdays.
But here’s the important part: we’re not yet producing new cheeses. These cheddars were made before Monforte left the old facility in Millbank in anticipation of Monforte’s Renaissance 2010 year and our temporary homelessness.
So what’s going on at the diary? Well, we have our office there. We sell the aforementioned cheese there. And we’re happy to show people around the building. But the building is still an empty hulk, except for the office and storefront.
The transformation of the building into a functioning dairy hasn’t yet begun. But it will soon, and you’ll be the first to know. We need to put in walls, floors, ceilings, and drains – build a box within a box.
Once that’s done – and once we’ve purchased equipment like vats – we’ll start making cheese. We’re sticking to our schedule of being back in production when the milk flows in the New Year, say, February. Fresh cheeses like Sheep Dip, Nika, Blossom and Belle will be available in March and the aged cheeses will follow.
I can hardly wait. Can you?
