Glenda Pereira: 00:22
Welcome to the Maine Farmcast. This is your host, Dr. Glenda Pereira, an assistant professor at the University of Maine and the dairy specialist for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. For today’s episode, I’m really excited to be sitting down with Heather Donahue from Balfour Farm, cheesemaker, farmer, along with many hats. And today, we’re actually gonna be talking about an exciting organization in the state of Maine that has an upcoming event that everyone should attend, because who doesn’t love cheese. So we’re gonna be talking about the Maine Cheese Festival, which is happening on Sunday, September 14.
Glenda Pereira: 01:01
Folks should check it out. It’s gonna be held in Pittsfield, Maine. I went last year. There was so much to eat, so many vendors there. It was a great time.
Glenda Pereira: 01:09
So without further ado, Heather, would you please introduce yourself to our listeners?
Heather Donahue: 01:14
Hi, Glenda. It’s nice to visit with you today. My name is Heather Donahue. My husband, Doug, and I own and operate Balfour Farm in Pittsfield. And we are a small-scale certified organic dairy farm with a farmstead creamery.
Heather Donahue: 01:29
We also raise pigs and chickens. And we’ve been here in Maine since 2010, and we’ve been members of the Maine Cheese Guild since 2011. It was one of the first things that we did when we moved to Maine—go to the Maine Ag Trade Show in January and join the Maine Cheese Guild to learn all about being a cheesemaker here in Maine. We came to Maine as a dairy farm. We hadn’t processed milk before we got here.
Heather Donahue: 01:56
And so Maine has been our ground zero for a cheesemaking operation, and the Maine Cheese Guild has been central to our experience in doing that. I’ve been a board member for many, many years serving as secretary, and it’s been a privilege to work with so many talented people in raising the profile of this heritage food here in Maine and really highlighting the hard work of the dairy farmers and the cheesemakers here in Maine. Being part of that has been really, really fulfilling for us.
Glenda Pereira: 02:26
Yeah. You just got back from a trip. You went to promote some of the work in Maine. Do you wanna talk about the trip that you just got back from?
Heather Donahue: 02:34
There’s actually two things that we’ve done this summer that have been really exciting. We attended the American Cheese Society annual conference. This year, it was held in Sacramento, California, which is always a great learning experience for cheesemakers and retailers. Anyone adjunct to the cheese profession goes there for education and information. And this year, we had a pretty large group from Maine attend. I think there were seven of us altogether.
Heather Donahue: 03:01
Several cheesemakers, our executive director from the Maine Cheese Guild also attended, and it was her first time attending. So that was a great experience for her. And then recently, last week, I went to the National Mall in Washington, DC. The USDA had the Great American Farmers Market, and we were privileged to be one of the vendors there. So we brought our love of Maine cheese and all things dairy in Maine to the National Mall in Washington, DC, and spent a full week talking to people about dairy farming and cheesemaking in Maine and had a really great show down there.
Heather Donahue: 03:38
People were very, very interested. A lot of people had ties to Maine, had either lived in Maine, come to Maine for college and now work in the DC area, or had vacationed, or just really want to come to Maine to vacation for all the wonderful things that we have here in Maine, cheese included.
Glenda Pereira: 03:55
Yeah. Yeah. And so to bring us back, you had said that you’ve been a member since 2011, and you had a story that you were sharing with me earlier. So talk to us about some of the early beginnings of the Maine Cheese Guild and where we are now.
Heather Donahue: 04:08
Sure. So the Maine Cheese Guild started in 2003, and it was sponsored by MOFGA, the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, as well as the Department of Ag. And it was an organization that focused on cheesemakers—cheesemakers providing the education and the structure for the organization. And that hasn’t really changed much today. We’re completely volunteer-based for the board.
Heather Donahue: 04:33
We do have a paid director in the last couple years with our executive director, and that came about funded in part from the Cheese Festival, but also as part of an NDBIC grant program, which is the Northeast Dairy Business Innovation Center located in Vermont. They provide funding to organizations, farms, dairies, cheesemakers, processors throughout an 11-state region.
Glenda Pereira: 05:02
Yeah. It goes just down to Maryland and—
Heather Donahue: 05:04
It’s a big area. And so they have funding from the federal government that is apportioned to different programs that they have, and one of those was marketing. And so we were able to secure our very first director through funding through that program, and we’ve been able to continue doing it through support from funds earned through the Maine Cheese Guild, and then other programs that we participate in. I think that making any type of organization that is producer-driven always tends to have a little bit stronger footing because the members themselves have an active interest in the success of that. That shows in the number of volunteer hours that our board and our members give to the guild in order to have these events happen. Aside from the Maine Cheese Festival, the guild also puts on educational events.
Heather Donahue: 05:55
This year, we’ve had a workshop on washed rind cheeses. We were able to bring a producer from Wisconsin, I believe, to talk about their processes and what they do. We’ve had people come from Scotland, Vermont, even from France, to come and talk to us so that we can learn about different skills and processes and how it’s done in different areas. And really, when it comes down to it, cheesemaking is the same no matter where you go. It’s just the regional tweaks that you can put on those recipes and those techniques and what you have available to you in your area that make it really special and really have that terroir and that taste of place, which Maine has in abundance.
Glenda Pereira: 06:39
Yeah. So speaking of cheese, what’s your favorite cheese? I know this is a hard question. It’s like picking one—who’s your favorite child?
Heather Donahue: 06:48
You know, I really do have a favorite, and it’s Gouda. The very first cheese I learned to make was in a workshop in the Adirondacks with Peter Dixon, and he is a cheese educator from Vermont. I was just amazed the first time I went to a cheese workshop. We made this amazing Gouda, and then I had to wait a couple months in my refrigerator till I could eat it.
Heather Donahue: 07:14
And it still is my favorite cheese to make, and it’s my favorite cheese to eat because it just goes with everything. You can melt it. You can cook it. You can slice it. You can just eat a chunk of it.
Heather Donahue: 07:24
It’s my go-to cheese for everything.
Glenda Pereira: 07:27
Yeah. And you have a cheese from your creamery that is—it’s like a sharp cheddar, but it’s not like a sharp cheddar. I can’t remember what the name of it is, but it’s so good.
Heather Donahue: 07:41
We have a couple different cheddars. So we take our cheddar recipe, and then we modify it to make a lot of different cheeses. We have our regular cheddar called Haymaker, and it has a natural rind which kind of mimics a clothbound English-style cheddar without the cloth on it. So we allow molds to naturally grow on the outside of it, and we brush it and flip it during aging much like you would a clothbound cheddar. And so we get those earthy notes and the sharpness develops, but without all that extra work of putting that cloth on and taking that cloth off.
Heather Donahue: 08:15
So that’s kind of our styling of that traditional English-style cheese. And then we also take that same cheese recipe, and we can age it more commercially, in a vacuum seal bag so that there’s no rind on it, which makes it more approachable to people that are used to seeing cheese in that way in the cheese case or the deli case. We can also age it longer because it doesn’t lose moisture while it’s aging in that way. That develops some really nice flavors. So we can do a three- and four-year cheese when we age it in that way.
Heather Donahue: 08:49
The Haymaker we only age for about two years, a year and a half to two years, and then it really starts to dry out a little bit too much. So that’s kind of time-limited. And then we can take those same curds and add herbs to them. We have an onion and chive, which is very much like a traditional English-style Cotswold. And then we have our own take on a spicy cheese.
Heather Donahue: 09:11
We call it a Maine style. It has chipotle and ghost pepper in it. Wow. But it’s not—I know everybody thinks, oh no, but it’s got ghost pepper.
Heather Donahue: 09:22
But it’s really just a touch, just a ghost, a hint of the ghost pepper. It has a nice little bit of heat to begin with, but it’s a mellow heat from those smoked peppers in the chipotles. And then there’s just a tiny little kick, and then it disappears really quick. So it’s an enjoyable spicy cheese, and it doesn’t make you regret eating it the rest of the afternoon.
Glenda Pereira: 09:43
That sounds really delicious. And I incentivize folks to not only come out to the farm and try Heather. So that’s Balfour Farm, and then you have the little cheese shop is where you can purchase. Is that correct?
Heather Donahue: 09:58
Well, we actually were able to work with our local Hannaford-branded store, Danforth, the Somerset Plaza right downtown. And this spring, I saw the manager at a trade show, and I just offhandedly said, we’d love to see our cheese downtown. He’s like, okay, bring us some samples next week.
Heather Donahue: 10:18
And I did. And within two weeks, our cheese was down at the Hannaford downtown. It’s called Danforth, and they have more hours than we can offer. They have a better driveway than we can offer. So we’ve moved all of our local retailing in Pittsfield down to the grocery store.
Heather Donahue: 10:34
It’s easier for people to access, and it works well for us because I don’t have to remember to put things in the store.
Glenda Pereira: 10:42
Yeah.
Heather Donahue: 10:42
And as our business is growing and changing, we really need that store space for storage—for packaging, for cheeses and whatnot. So we’ve moved all of our on-farm retailing downtown. And then you can also find us, of course, at the Cheese Festival coming up in September. We do the Common Ground Fair in September also. September’s a busy month for cheese for us.
Heather Donahue: 11:05
And then we do the Portland Farmers Market twice a week in the summer on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and then year-round from November to early April just on Saturdays.
Glenda Pereira: 11:16
Yeah. And you hear Doug in the background right now. So I hope—
Heather Donahue: 11:20
He’s moving tractors around.
Glenda Pereira: 11:22
But so you cannot only find Heather at those locations she mentioned, but you can find other Cheese Guild members through the Maine Cheese Guild’s website. You guys are well networked there, or you can find a lot of those folks too, like Heather mentioned, at the Maine Cheese Festival that’s gonna be upcoming September 14. And then I just lastly wanted to say that when I talk to new farmers in the area that I haven’t met before and they are making cheese, I always say, have you met folks from the Maine Cheese Guild? Because there’s so many specific questions that they have, and I know for a fact folks that are part of the Cheese Guild have experienced that, and they can help these new and beginning farmers troubleshoot some of the things that they’re going through. So I really look at the organization as a network of resourceful folks.
Glenda Pereira: 12:13
I guess that’s how I view folks in that group, because you guys have so much experience, and you come together, and you really share it, like you mentioned, through educational opportunities. But even just reaching out and connecting, when I connect those folks, I think you guys are just a wealth of knowledge.
Heather Donahue: 12:30
The mission of the guild is education, education, education. Whether we’re educating cheesemakers, retailers, or even the general public about cheese and cheesemaking, that’s the ultimate goal—to provide really good educational resources. And so I meet a lot of people at different events that want to start dairy farms, and I say the first thing you should do is call the Cheese Guild. We have documents that the executive director can provide. We can point you in the right direction, help you find your local milk inspector because they are the ones that you really need to talk to.
Heather Donahue: 13:10
They can give you individual advice about your operation. They’ll do a walk-through about things you’re thinking of before you start any construction. They can be a consultant and help you navigate the state rules and the PMO, which is the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance, which is the rules that we have to operate by, as well as the dairy rules for the state. Maine is very fortunate in that we have a very helpful-minded Department of Agriculture to help increase and sustain the number of dairy farms and creameries we have in Maine. That’s not the case across the country.
Heather Donahue: 13:51
So we are extremely fortunate that our Department of Agriculture has that mindset of, let us help you be a safe and successful cheesemaker. Let us help you navigate the ways that we can get you licensed and help you follow all the rules. One thing people might not realize is that this is available to them when they move to the state. You don’t have to be here for a long time. You don’t have to have longevity here in Maine.
Heather Donahue: 14:19
As a newcomer, get in touch with the Department of Ag. There’s a lot of programs and questions that they can answer for you to help your farm be successful, whether it’s a dairy farm or a vegetable farm.
Glenda Pereira: 14:30
Yeah. Thank you for that resource and tidbit too. So reach out to the Maine Cheese Guild. They can send you in the right direction. And now, just as a reminder, where can folks try all the cheese from the Maine cheesemakers?
Heather Donahue: 14:43
The Maine Cheese Festival is the place to be. It’s held in Manson Park, a beautiful 42-acre park on the Sebasticook River right in Pittsfield. September 14, it’s a Sunday, goes from 11 AM to 5 PM. We usually have around 20 cheesemakers that participate and about 40 other food vendors, including food trucks. Everybody does sampling for their products, so it’s a really fun day.
Heather Donahue: 15:10
Don’t eat breakfast before you come. You can definitely find lots of tasty things, and educational talks. This year, the highlight for me—I’m really excited to hear the guys from Nibblesford down in Biddeford, Maine are gonna be doing a talk on cheese and the supernatural, and I’m super excited to learn about that. We also have live music all day as well. And Cooperative Extension is gonna be here, doing some presentations, and I believe the Maine Children’s Museum is gonna have a booth this year with lots of activities for kids. There’ll be tractors to look at.
Heather Donahue: 15:46
And if we can swing it, we’ll bring some calves down too.
Glenda Pereira: 15:49
Awesome. Yeah. So September 14 is coming up. Look on social media, website, look for that because you can get tickets ahead of time so you can be prepared.
Heather Donahue: 15:58
Yeah.
Glenda Pereira: 15:59
And, I mean, come hungry.
Heather Donahue: 16:01
Absolutely.
Glenda Pereira: 16:02
Well, thank you so much, Heather, for today’s conversation. I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you have future topic suggestions, or if you have questions, be sure to email Extension.