Avery Jones Shoots for the Stars with Her Zodiac Inspired Cheeses

Even though Avery Jones grew up in her parent’s creamery, she never thought she’d get into cheesemaking, but when offered the opportunity, she made a sheep’s milk cheese that quickly won awards. Now she’s in college, but she’s also the owner of Shooting Star Creamery, established with her father Reggie Jones of Central Coast Creamery in 2019. Since opening her creamery has won several awards and produced several cheeses, named after Zodiac signs: Aries, Scorpio, Sagittarius, and Leo. Read our profile of Sagittarius.

Growing up with Cheese

Jones had been around the cheesemaking business since she was eight when her parents moved to Paso Robles, CA to start their creamery. In the first few years, there were few employees so her parents did most of the work and Jones would watch. “I really started learning about cheese making [by] watching my parents. Sometimes they would let me operate one of our vacuum sealers, or help label cheese,” Jones said. 

But it wasn’t until she was fifteen that she had the opportunity to make her own cheese. “In 2019, my dad just sort of turned to me: “Hey, you’ve been here awhile and you kind of know how to do everything. Do you want to try making your own cheese?” And so of course, I was like, “Yeah, sure. Why not give it a try?” 

Her dad taught her about how difficult bacteria cultures and different milks make cheese taste different. He also researched unmet opportunities in the cheese market to see where Shooting Star could find its place. “We found a hole in the market for specifically sheep’s milk alpine cheese, which is where Aries came in,” she explained. That cheese would go on to win awards.

Cheese & School

For Jones, all of this was surprising. “Even though my parents owned a cheese company, I never really thought of it as something that I would go into,” Avery explained, “I had this idea in my mind that it was so complicated that no high schooler could ever hope to be a part of it.” She’d thought she’d have to study for years in college to be able to make cheese. “I didn’t really think that it was something in my future,” Jones said.

Right now, she is working on her degree, double majoring in biological sciences and theater, while her dad runs the creamery. When asked about the future, she said, “I definitely think that cheese like Shooting Star will continue to be part of my life, but it’s not something I’m actively studying in college at the moment.” 

Now that she has her own cheese company, she works to raise awareness that “cheese is not some astronomical out of reach thing. If you want to get into cheese, you can certainly do it even if you’re as young as I was when I was 15,” she said. 

The Zodiac Calendar

Since her success with Aries, she’s made three more cheeses, all named for Zodiac signs. When asked if there were plans to do all the signs of Zodiac calendar, she said while they do not have the space for all 12 at the facility—Shooting Star and Central Coast Creamery share space—but hopefully they’ll be able to do all of them.

For three of the four, she made the cheese first, and then matched it to the Zodiac sign. Scorpio, a washed rind sheep milk cheese, has a smelly odor: “it’s kind of funky, like most Scorpios are thought to be,” Avery noted. Leo, a bloomy rind sheep’s milk, got its name for the mane-like white mold that is characteristic of bloomy cheeses. 

Sagittarius came a bit after the cheese. They wanted to make a cheese from different milks; sheep’s milk and cow’s milk gouda. They looked for Zodiac signs associated with twos like Pisces and Gemini, but it didn’t quite fit. Sagittarius, on the other hand, was a hybrid creature of a horse and a man, which fit the bill. 

Giving Back  

In addition to helping to pay her way her through college, Jones is using the proceeds from the company to give back to the community. She contributes some of the profits to AmpSurf, a non-profit rehabilitative surf organization in Pismo Beach, that Jones says, “Helps Veterans and amputees find a thing that takes their mind off of everything they can’t do. It focuses on everything they can do and helps them recover mentally and physically.” She chose the organization after reading a book about by her grandfather’s experience in the military, “Towards the end of the book, he was talking about how he came back and felt like he was out of place, and he was really struggling with mental health and to find a purpose,” she shares.

Lessons Learned

While her company is barely four years old, Avery Jones has learned a lot in that time. “Cheese is a very, very complicated business to get into,” she said. It can be very finicky, she explained, if one thing is off, the cheese won’t come out tasting right even though it’s made just the same as all the other cheeses. Something could be wrong with the milk, or another ingredient can be expired. 

With COVID-19, she discovered a lot about supply lines since both creameries source their milk from dairies. Plus, she understood the importance of restaurants for cheesemakers, since most had to shut down, they sold mostly to cheese shops.

She recalled that they had several cases of Leo that wouldn’t sell. “We actually had to discount it like 50 to 75% to get a different cheese shop to buy it. Because otherwise it would have gone bad. Yeah, we were really struggling at the beginning of COVID.”

Despite all the challenges, Shooting Star and Avery Jones continue to flourish. While it’s unclear if cheese will be her career path after college or not, undoubtedly her philosophy, “Shoot for the stars and try to do everything to the best of your ability” will guide her well no matter what she decides to do next.