Jasper Hill Farm

Greensboro, VT

Great collaborators of Saxelby Cheesemongers, Jasper Hill is a working dairy farm with an on-site creamery in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and an underground aging facility that maximizes the potential of cheeses made by the creamery, as well as those made by other local producers. 

Apprentices would help primarily with Affinage work — or hands-on cheese care in the Cellars. They would learn cheese mongering from paper-wrapping to cheese service in the new tasting room. They would join in for educational staff trainings, classes for the public, and 'Cheese Camp' sessions where cheese professionals come up to learn about our process and cheese in general. They would also see other parts of the business like the farm, creameries, cropping center and the marketing office/fulfillment center.

Brothers Andy and Mateo Kehler decided to start a business in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom because their family had ties to the land there for over 100 years, summering at nearby Caspian Lake. They wanted to create a sustainable agricultural business that would revive the working landscape of Vermont, which was being decimated by big dairy farms and industrial agriculture. They bought 'the old Jasper Hill Farm' in Greensboro, Vermont in 1998, and worked for five years to restore the barn, start a herd of Ayrshire dairy cows, and build a creamery.

Back in the early days, Andy milked the cows, Mateo made the cheese, and their wives Victoria and Angie helped out to do all the rest - from aging cheese to wrapping it up for sale to keeping the books, etc. In 2003, their first batches of cheese were ready to take to market, and they met with instant success. In the beginning, all of the cheeses were aged in a cellar located beneath the original creamery, but after their collaboration with Cabot Creamery, Cabot Clothbound Cheddar, took home 'Best in Show' accolades at the 2006 American Cheese Society conference, the Kehlers decided to build the Cellars at Jasper Hill Farm to age their own cheeses as well as cheeses from other farms. The Cellars at Jasper Hill is the largest cheese aging facility in the United States.

Jasper Hill Farm's mission is to create a 'Taste of Place' and to invigorate the working agricultural landscape of Vermont's beautiful Northeast Kingdom. Over the years the business has grown by leaps and bounds to include the Cellars at Jasper Hill, the Calderwood Cropping Center, and the Food Venture Center in the neighboring town of Hardwick. They employ over 100 people, and make cheese from the milk of their own farm and many other neighboring farms, ensuring that the dairy farmers are being paid a fair price for their milk. Jasper Hill Farm also partnered with Bridgman Hill Farm, a goat dairy, to make a line of mixed milk cheeses.