Women increasingly are choosing artisan and industrial cheesemaking as career path

By Amelia Buragas

MADISON, Wis. — At most conferences for cheesemakers, men easily outnumber women. However, this trend is changing as a new generation of men and women come into the field.

Kara Kasten, 22, represents this new generation of cheesemakers. A senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Kasten is a double major in dairy science and life sciences communications. She decided last year to work toward her cheesemaker’s license and expects to take the test before the end of the year.

“I do not have any experience in cheesemaking, but I did grow up on a small family dairy farm,” Kasten says. “So, when I started I knew nothing and many people always kind of looked at me funny when I told them what I hoped to do after graduation.”

Women as a gender certainly are not new to the cheesemaking process. For centuries, women made cheese and other dairy products in their homes to feed their families. However, in the United States the profession of cheesmaking largely has been dominated by men.

For example, only 3 percent of Wisconsin licensed cheesemakers are women. That’s just 40 out of 1,222. However, the state reports this trend is changing and in the past three years alone, an additional half dozen women joined the field.

Not only are women proving themselves to be proficient cheesemakers, they are excelling in the field. Julie Hook, Hook’s Cheese, became the first woman to win the top spot at the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association’s World Championship Cheese Contest in 1982. Carrie Wagner, Foremost Farms USA, was the first woman to earn the title of Wisconsin Master Cheesemaker in 2001.

“Not only are we seeing a renaissance in artisan cheeses in Wisconsin, we’re seeing an emergence of women taking the role of lead cheesemaker in the artisan make room,” says Jim Gage, manager of the Dairy Business Innovation Center (DBIC).

DBIC is a non-profit organization that works to increase the number of specialty dairy plants in Wisconsin. Gage says many of DBIC’s current clients are women.

Jennifer Bice, Redwood Hill Farm, Sebastopol, Calif., has served on the American Cheese Society’s board of directors for three years. Bice says women tend to be drawn toward the artisan side as opposed to the industrial side of cheesemaking with its mechanization and often heavy lifting.

“I think there have always been more women involved in the artisan cheese movement,” Bice says. “I believe this is because with artisan cheesemaking, it is so creative and artistic and more closely related to cooking in size and scale.”

Kasten, who works part-time for DBIC, acknowledges that learning the cheesemaking process has been challenging. She will serve her apprenticeship at the UW-Madison dairy plant this fall and says she hopes that experience will “bring the whole process together.”

After graduation, Kasten says her goal is to work for a small artisan cheese plant to continue the learning process. Someday she hopes to own her own farmstead operation.

“But that’s going to be a while,” Kasten says. “I feel like I have a lot to learn.”