While monasteries (such as Our Lady of Angels Monastery) making and selling their own cheeses goes back centuries, making cheese in a church is a less common. But it’s that combination of tradition and innovation that makes Jean Morin and his family’s aptly named Fromagerie du Presbytère a success.
The Church
While Fromagerie du Presbytère opened in 2005, in the village Sainte-Élizabeth de Warwick, about an hour and a half from Quebec City, Morin was no stranger to the dairy industry; he was the fourth generation of dairy farmers, living in the same house as his great-grandparents.
Twenty-five years ago, Morin began learning as much about cheese as he could, traveling all over including France and Switzerland. “I’m an organic farmer and I’m looking for what I can do with my milk,” Morin explained. Cheese for his passion; he loves how tasting cheese makes people smile. There’s just so much possibility of converting milk into different kinds of cheeses.
But the idea of using a church was not an obvious one. Morin recalled that every time his mother came home from attending services at the church, she’d mention how cold and moist it was. Morin responded, “Wow, it’s perfect for cheese.”
In 2015, Morin decided to buy the church building, which had been on the market for years. He got it for a dollar but it cost much more to renovate it. “It’s very important to me to conserve the building,” Morin explained, “This building was there before me. It was one of the first buildings in the small village.”
They converted part of the building into the dairy, including a chamber to age cheese. Plus, there’s a 50-seat chapel inside the building so Sunday services continued for years until COVID-19 stopped it. Every Friday, they’ve had gatherings of cheese and music in front of the church, which Morin likened to people talking after Sunday church services.
The Cheese
Despite COVID-19, they continue to make a wide variety of cheeses from bleu cheese to washed rind cheeses, twelve in all. They’ve received many awards for their cheeses; notably their Elizabeth’s Blue, a blue cheese named for the town they are in, has won 10 awards including a prestigious award for Quebec cheesemakers. Morin called it a “blue or everyone” since it is milder than other blues on the market.
Another award-winning cheese is their Louis D’or, a raw milk washed rind cheese, has won seventeen awards. Morin named the cheese after grandfather named Louis. It’s also “a wink referring to this French currency born under the reign of Louis XIII in 1640,” according to the cheesemaker’s website.
While Fromagerie du Presbytère has won a total of 100 awards and mentions so far, Morin won’t rest on his laurels. “What can we do to be better than yesterday? And every day is very important: How can I do better?” Morin said.
Robots in Church
Morin has not been shy about innovating. The 2,000 wheels of cheese stored in their warehouse have to be flipped twice a week to encourage the flavor they want in their cheese. Doing it by hand takes a lot of effort and time so Morin decided to bring in a robot (editor’s note: read more about cheese robots) that would flip the cheeses. Morin called it a contradiction to have a robot in a church. But it was necessary since the manual labor to wash and turn the cheeses twice a week became onerous.
The family tradition continues. Now his children have joined the business, raising the cows on their lands that deliver all the high-quality milk for their cheeses. And they’ll keep making their cheese on their lands and in this former Presbyterian church.
“I’m very proud of his small business. It’s like a dream for me,” Morin said.