Business & Tech
War of the Cheeses
Sheep cheese is off-limits for one booth at Nyack's Farmers Market—but one day they showed up with it anyway, infuriating their rival.
The last Nyack farmers' market booth we checked out specialized in cheeses, and the merchants noted another dairy-driven booth had entered the playing field.
So, I decided to check out the competition.
(And by the way, last week's farmers' market was busy. There was a special appearance by New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, watchful police, jugglers from Amazing Grace Circus and this one girl I used to babysit for. But I digress.)
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The Sprout Creek Farm booth is in its first year at the Nyack farmers' market. The booth sells cheese wheels that aren't at perfect weight—they can't be carried in stores, and so the public can snatch them up at a discount price. And Sprout Creek's cheeses are so popular they've been added to many organic and health food stores.
The booth's products are from a variety of farms—at last week's market, they had goat cheeses from Sprout Creek, Nettle Meadow and Old Chatham Sheepherding Company, all organic, grass-fed farms.
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Cheeses are just a portion of the fare, though: Sprout Creek also sells whole smoked trout from Lenny B in Bearsville, NY. Another favorite is the lamb mushroom spring rolls (one booth regular explained he has to buy two each and every week).
Now, on to this supposed rivalry:
Sprout Creek is well-known to carry Old Chatham Sheepherding Company camembert, a sheep-cow blend. It is a very popular, brie-like cheese (I tried some—it was light and buttery). But since there was already a cheese booth at the market, they were told they could not carry sheep cheese.
Sprout Creek was torn—they didn't want to upset their customers, so they decided to carry the camembert anyway.
That's when things got bad. Valley Shepard Creamery was not ready to give up their monopoly on sheep cheese, but Sprout Creek introduced a positive spin. Since Valley Shepard doesn't carry a camembert cheese, it wouldn't be fair to deprive the customers, right? And so it was settled.
Time to put those smoking guns down—these cheese companies are ready to play nice.
The Sprout Creek booth appears at seven farmers' markets a week, and three on the weekends.
