Make Money With Specialty Cheeses

One great way to profit from your dairy cows or goats is to become an expert, an aficionado, of some product that has a high perceived value. Specialty cheeses definitely fit that category.

If you already work with dairy animals, experimenting with making different styles of cheese could lead you to the one unique style people love. But even if you are without your own dairy cows or goats, partner with a local homesteader dairy for your raw product. In fact, a nearby milk producer allows you to focus entirely on making cheeses, without the added need to care for animals.

One reason I enjoy shopping at Whole Foods is they fill containers with bits of very expensive cheeses for their customers to browse while they shop. That gives you a chance to munch on specialty cheeses beyond your price range - ($8 to $12 a pound). Yet, Whole Foods must sell a whole lot of those expensive cheeses, because they display many throughout the store.

In fact, one third of American grocery shoppers buy specialty cheeses and a lot more enjoy trying them.

The big producers of cheese are focused on quantity. There is no money for the little guy to make at the bottom of the price scale. So don't focus on making ordinary cheese. In fact, become an "expert" in a variety of cultural cheeses, Old World, Latin American, and so on, positioning yourself above the "ordinary" specialty cheese seller.

Of course, making any food product, especially something from milk, places you under all sorts of legal requirements. Don't bog down in "setting up a business" until you know you have something people love. Try your various creations on friends and family - for free. Make sure people are ready to buy before you plow through all the legal hoops.

Check the laws first; I am not advising anyone to break any law. A major heartache, though, in an endeavor like cheese making, is to "build your business," fulfill all legal requirements, get all set up, and then discover that no one really likes your cheese anyhow.

You might find it interesting to Google "monastery cheese producing." Do these kinds of articles intrigue you? If so, one secret to any endeavor like this is to become the local expert, the aficionado, the one who possesses the secrets of a number of unique and historical kinds of cheeses.