The Small-Scale Cheese Business: The Complete Guide to Running a Successful Farmstead Creamery

My wife and I recently purchased an 80-acre farm in the Virginia highlands with a view toward raising dairy goats and making cheese when we begin our early retirement in about three years. Our due diligence has included reading a number of books on these subjects during the past two years including all three of Ms. Caldwell's books ("The Small-Scale Cheese Business", "The Small-Scale Dairy" and "Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking"). While each book is a five-star read in its own right, the focus of this review is "The Small Scale Cheese Business". I suspect most people finding their way to this book on Amazon have the same nascent interest in goat farming and cheesemaking that my wife and I developed a couple of years ago. Our only qualifications for this venture at that time were a love of farm animals (wife) and a love of well-crafted food products (me), plus the wisdom to know that a substantial learning curve awaited us. Ms. Caldwell's book broke down the various topics into manageable bites that were digested easily. Although each topic is not covered completely (it would be impossible to do so in a single volume), she provides what we found to be a proper amount of information to prevent overwhelming the reader while also listing numerous resources for further research. If I had to identify a single characteristic of this book that separated it from the others we have read in this general area, I would point to the Ms. Caldwell's science-based explanations of goat diseases and cheese contamination from pathogens. Our two greatest fears going into this business are illness and death to both goats and humans due to situations we could have and should have prevented. We found that this book addressed these topics thoroughly and helpfully, while alleviating our fears somewhat that we might lay waste inadvertently to the goat and human populations. In fact, our business plan will recognize the resources we believe are necessary to ensure we do not let this happen. I look forward to reading anything else Ms. Caldwell may write on subjects related to goats and cheese. Her work provides a ready reference that I find myself pulling often from the book shelf.

Excellent information for building and running a cheese dairy.

I borrowed this book my college university's library for a project and ended up loving it so much I just had to own it. That says alot as a poor college student. I will say however, that when you order it make sure to check your mailbox. I was waiting for ages (like a whole week) for a package to be on my doorstep and it never did. We have a tiny metal shared mailbox system at an apartment complex and ending up finding it in there days later. It was sadly bent but hoping will some weight on it it'll mold back into place. It was a poor judgement call for the postman to leave something someone might consider valuable (which I do) in a tiny mailbox a book should not fit in that is also stuffed with other letters and newspapers.

This book was fantastic, exceeded my expectations. I have read Caldwell's other book on cheese making and loved it, and I was pondering the idea of opening a farmstead creamery - while this book convinced me that I will NOT be pursuing this venture in the near future (I personally feel running a business of cheese making would take the fun out of it for me), the information was invaluable, her writing style is enjoyable and easy to read, and the latter chapters are great for anyone running a farm or a ranch, even if they don't run a creamery. And also, the ideas presented regarding equipment and facilities design are still valuable, even if you're not a commercial producer.

My husband and I have been working on a business plan for our agritourism venture. Gianaclis has been an incredible resource and inspiration from the beginning. Her expertise and knowledge shines through in all of her books, and I couldn't have asked for a better guide through it all.

I am a spanish cheesemaker and I love this book. So useful if you are thinking in open a small cheese factory

Very well organized, but a bit tedious in the descriptions and listing of aspects regarding the suitability of one's project. There's no space for failure and apparently there's no creative business, without failure.

Love this book. It's been immensely helpful to me as I am staring my creamery. So glad I read this BEFORE I actually started. A must for anyone interested in starting up a cheese business. It will help me save a lot of money, time, and frustration!

Great book

this is a great book and if you want to build a micro cheese business ...this is a book for you. a lot of hard work has been put in to this book and very easy to understand Stuart Gillespie. Hereford .England

Interesting read

Good information for those wishing to set up and run a dairy. The only reason it did not get 5 stars is because it's American origin leaves some parts irrelevant to other markets.

didn't tell me anything I didn't know already; Too general