ALGOMA (NBC 26) — Renard’s Artisan Cheese recently took first place at the World Championship Cheese Contest for a cheddar cheese that its owner says is an old family secret.
“I started making cheese when I was about the age of four following my dad around the factory," said owner and master cheesemaker Chris Renard. "Actually my first play pen was whatever vat was open at the time.”
The business has been a staple of Door County for three generations. Renard's grandfather first established the company in 1961 and passed the business on to his son and then grandson. Renard and his wife Anne took over the business in 1995.
“I remember coming into the factory with dad early in the morning, getting vats ready, pressing hoops, getting stuff ready at the factory,” Renard said.
Handcrafted fresh everyday, the business has some of the most esteemed cheeses not only in Wisconsin but in the world. One of Renard’s cheddar cheeses took 1st place in its category at the World Championship Cheese Contest. The contest is a competition between thousands of the best cheesemakers around the world.
“Flavor, composition, appearance. Those are the things they really grade on," Renard said. "It’s kind of like the Super Bowl for cheese. It’s where all the cheesemakers of the world go. I think there was close to 3,000 entries this year."
Renard says his prized cheddar was developed through years of tweaking the recipe. The cheese took first in its category in 2008 and again this year.
The category we won in was bandaged style cheddar," Renard said. "That is something we specialize here. We’ve been doing that since I grew up making cheese.”
As for what makes his cheddar recipe and all of Renard’s cheeses stand out among the competition, he says there are two main ingredients. The first is the high quality products from Wisconsin’s dairy farms.
“We have 24 local farms that bring in high quality milk," Renard said. "We can’t make high quality cheese without the quality milk we get from our area farms.”
The second ingredient is the hard work and passion he and his team put into their handcrafted cheeses everyday.
“We are hands-on the whole cheese making process," Renard said. "Everyone involved from the milk coming in to the final product going out leaving the door, there’s a lot of people that touch it and a lot of hard work and care into it.”
You can stop by Renard's Cheese at their locations in Algoma and Sturgeon Bay. To learn more, you can visit renardscheese.com
