A Goat's Milk Cheesemaking Business

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Obviously, then, the veal operation's cash flow was poor . . . and death losses, which amounted to one or two calves a year, were devastating to the small-scale program.

Some sharp-pencil figuring convinced the Belle Terre owners that, even if they increased their herd size, and were able to find enough customers who wanted milkfed veal, the operation's gross would still not produce much in the way of net profit, and would be an enormous drain on the family's time. And the swine-raising scheme turned out to be pretty much the same story. ("We found that hogs just weren't compatible with our lifestyle," Jerry comments.)

BELLS GO OFF

So thats the situation the Aiellos found themselves facing in 1978: They had 55 acres, more than half of which was nurtured-back-to-health pasture . . . a carefully bred herd of proven milk producers . . . and a growing dissatisfaction with the notion of raising livestock for slaughter.

About that time, Jerry saw an article in Hoard's Dairyman that described the University of Minnesota's Farmstead Cheese Program. Simply stated, this program—which was implemented in 1976—encouraged owners of small- to medium-sized dairy cow herds to set up farm-based cheesemaking operations (such enterprises have been common in Europe for many years) and sell the products retail. The initial cost of establishing a cheese plant was estimated at around $30,000 . . . but the farmers who made the investment found ready customers for their wares. Moreover, the dairy operators were no longer plagued by the triple problems characteristic of small-scale milk producers: finding a market ... storing the milk ... and arranging for its transportation to a processing plant.

The article jolted Jerry. "Bells went off in my head," he recalls. "I figured that there wasn't any reason the program couldn't be scaled down to goat-size." And, upon further investigation, the Aiellos decided they had the raw material to establish their own cheesemaking operation: the Nubians... a 17' X 35' cinderblock building (then used as a goat barn) that could be turned into the "factory"... and a firm conviction that it would be possible to whittle the capital costs down to a manageable sum.

RULES AND REGULATIONS

Jerry's first job was to find out what steps would have to be taken for the operation to comply with Virginia Department of Agriculture dairy regulations. "The agriculture folks were fantastic," Jerry said. "They assigned a dairy inspector to work with us, and that man realized, from the outset, that we weren't going to be a large-scale dairy plant. We were just a small operation on a family farm."

The inspector adapted and interpreted some of the existing regulations to fit Belle Terre's circumstances . .. and, further along in the project, even helped the Aiellos design the facility and track down equipment for it. Encouraged by the agriculture department's receptive attitude, Jerry then tackled his next big task: building a barn to house the goats that were to be evicted from the cheese plant-to-be.

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