Sarit, Jesse, and Reuben Werner in front of the Plymouth Cheese Factory, where America’s oldest cheddar recipe is made.

Visiting Plymouth Cheese is a little like stepping back in time. The factory, which resides within the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site, has been making cheese since 1890, and its owner, Jesse Werner, has been working hard to preserve that legacy, evident in the care with which he makes and sells the product.

During a visit, Jesse points out the site’s other buildings through the factory’s windows: That’s where the former president was born, that’s where he grew up. That’s where he was sworn in. From where we stand, we can see the post office, the general store, and centuries-old buildings connected by dirt roads.

Since taking over in 2009, Jesse has been using the original Plymouth Cheese recipe sourced from Vermont state archives and has consulted with a woman in town who was head cheesemaker back in the 1960s. Was the texture right? The flavor? How could he create a profitable product while remaining true to the institution?

Because, Jesse says, that’s one of the coolest things about this place: that it’s wrapped in farming, Vermont, and presidential history. It means a lot to the people who visit and the people who live here, many of whom have worked in the factory themselves or whose ancestors have.

Back to Vermont

Jesse grew up on a small Vermont farm in Franklin County, and as a teenager, would help his neighbor make feta cheese after school. “He was an older Greek guy who had some goats and liked to make feta cheese every day. I started helping him,” he says. “I thought it was really cool. I kept learning about it.”

He studied sociology at Brandeis, just outside Boston, but always wanted to live in Vermont—it was just a matter of figuring out what he was going to do. He took courses at the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese, apprenticed under cheesemaker Marc Andre St. Yves in Quebec, and in 2009, moved back to his home state.

“I came back to Vermont to try to start a cheese business,” he says. “I had heard that the state of Vermont wanted to rent this cheese factory out. So I came down and checked it out.”
The Coolidge family had owned the building until turning it over to the state of Vermont to become part of the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site in 1998. In 2009, Jesse put together a plan to revive the factory and the original granular curd cheddar recipe, which was accepted. He began making cheese that summer.

Preserving History

At times figuring out how to revive the original recipe and brand felt to Jesse like an archaeology project, and in the beginning, he’d consult with a woman in town who’d been the head cheesemaker in the ’60s. He thinks the finite differences in how cheese is made is an interesting way to look at history. “Why is the cheese the way it is? It usually comes back to the environment or the people. There’s always a reason for why it turned out the way it did,” he says.  In Vermont, it was all about cheddar, which you could make in large quantities. “It’s salted the day you make it, so it can be made in a day. And then you can age it almost indefinitely if it’s made well, so it keeps,” he says. “It didn’t need lots of refrigeration, so it lent itself to being a viable commercial product early on.”

Jesse and his wife, Sarit Werner, also designed the branding to be reminiscent of original labeling, which visitors can see etched on signs in the second-floor museum alongside antique metal-lined cheesemaking vats and a butter churn linked to what appears to be a manual treadmill.

Into the Modern Era

Naturally, preserving Plymouth Cheese while making it viable and profitable in the 21st century is a delicate balance. When Jesse first took over, he made 40-pound wheels of cheese, like in the old days, but most buyers today don’t want to purchase 40 pounds of cheese all at once. Now they produce eight-ounce cheddar bars with milk from Woodlawn Farmstead in various ages and flavors, including black truffle, garlic peppercorn, and harissa, in addition to Brie via their own recipe.  There are limits to the physical building, too. A few years ago, Jesse and his family purchased a portion of the Bridgewater Mill for warehouse space to help with shipping and delivering. “This is great, but it definitely is an antique cheese factory,” he says, gesturing to the small building and winding dirt road.

But he thinks some of those old practices are worth the effort and extra cost. That morning, they’d coated the cheese in wax packaging, a different color for each flavor. “Most places have gone to just plastic bags, which are cheaper and easier,” he says. “But we wanted to make something like the original, and it was wrapped in wax.”

He says he still enjoys the whole business cycle: taking raw materials, making something new, and then selling it, all right here in Vermont. “I think people these days are interested in knowing where their food comes from,” he says. “This is an expression of something you can make locally in a very small circle.”

Plymouth Cheese
106 Messer Hill Road
Plymouth Notch, VT
(802) 672-3650
plymouthcheese.com