Big Changes for Landmark Creamery

Landmark Creamery recently celebrated a decade of crafting cheese. But 2024 was a milestone year for Anna Landmark and her company, Landmark Creamery, for many reasons.  In April, cheesemaking activities shifted from a time-slot space at Cedar Grove Cheese to a fully leased facility that will allow up to four times the output of Landmark cheeses including heralded award-winners like Anabasque and Tallgrass Reserve. 

“I could now make cheese every day, if needed,” says Landmark. “We have bigger vats to work with, and we are now just 15 minutes away from our milk source.” 

In 2023 Landmark Creamery entered a partnership with a local inn and restaurant, Seven Acre Dairy (In a re-developed late 19th century cheese and butter factory) that resulted in the development of a micro-dairy where Anna now makes and sells artisan butter. Most recently, Nic Mink, a partner at Seven Acre has also purchased the interests of Landmark’s original founding partner, Anna Thomas Bates.

“I’m very curious. I like to be involved in things, and I always have my eyes open to other opportunities,” Landmark says. 

 

Landmark Creamery History

The story of Landmark Creamery’s founding reflects Anna’s sense of adventure.  Her grandparents were dairy farmers, but encouraged their six children to pursue anything else, so farming skipped her parents’ generation. 

“I didn’t grow up on a farm, but I did 4-H as a kid,” she says. “When I grew up, I mostly just missed being around the animals.”

She and her husband eventually started a hobby farm with a few sheep and goats, and she made cheese at home with that goat’s milk with an eye toward becoming a licensed cheesemaker. Then there was a potluck dinner (involving Green County women with interests in sustainable agriculture) that changed everything. Anna Thomas Bates, a blogger and food writer for the Milwaukee Journal at the time, was also at that meeting. 

“We discovered that we lived in the same town,” Landmark remembers. “We started to get to know each other and our friendship grew from that. I’d go to her house and sip cocktails. I was working on my cheesemaker license, and she suggested the partnership.” 

Thomas became the sales and marketing partner once the company began selling its sheep’s milk and mixed milk cheese while Landmark, newly licensed, began working with Cedar Grove’s Bob Wills to develop and perfect those cheeses. Prior to launch, the partners had hoped to set up a farmstead operation, Landmark recalls. She and her husband had raised sheep for meat and wool, but never milked them. But when the founders found a local farm that had developed a flock and was ready to begin milking, they opted out of farmstead. “That shortened my timeline for launching by at least five years,” she says.

 

Soon the partners were networking with others in Wisconsin who were involved with sheep’s milk, including Mariana Marques de Almeida of Ms. J and Co. Marques de Almeida is a biologist who specializes in the breeding of sheep. In 2017 she pioneered the importation of semen for a breed known as Assaf that originated in Israel and has flourished in Spain since the 1970s. Assaf sheep are sturdier than other breeds and are significantly more productive and prolific, and Assaf milk is well-suited for cheesemaking. Marques de Almeida has continued her breeding work while developing a large flock and a state-of-the-art milking operation. In recent years, Landmark has sourced sheep’s milk exclusively from Marques de Almeida’s Assaf flocks. 

 

Special Cheeses

Anabasque, the flagship of Landmark’s line, is inspired by the centuries-old sheep’s milk cheeses of the French Basque region. It was developed as part of Landmark’s cheesemaking training and continues to be a top seller. Tallgrass Reserve is a 100% cow’s milk Alpine-style cheese made with milk from the pastured cows of a local cooperative. Landmark also makes a cow’s milk Fontina, several mixed milk cheeses and plain and flavored brebis, the sheep’s milk analog to fresh chevre. Rebel Miel is a beer-washed sheep’s milk cheese that has sometimes been washed with honey-based mead. The line also includes a firm pecorino style, and a cheese inspired by Taleggio.

The creamery’s aging facility, located in the tiny town of Paoli, 12 miles southwest of Madison, also features a cheese shop and café.  Local cheeses and Landmark butters are also sold at the café and micro-creamery at nearby Seven Acre Dairy. 

 

Looking Forward

Does Landmark hope there are more opportunities in store?

“I would like to build our own creamery,” she says, “And grow the business steadily.” But she also sees challenges, as many retailers have moved away from buying and cutting wheels, and the food service sector faces its own challenges. Mink brings extensive experience in wholesale distribution, and in growing a small business, Landmark says. Together they plan to scale up the cheese business significantly in coming years.  

Expansion of small-ruminant cheesemaking throughout Wisconsin is expected to continue. That could lead to other opportunities including the beginning of a market for by-products from sheep’s milk cheese. 

“There is currently not enough volume to use the whey,” Landmark says. “In Europe they are making sheep whey ricotta, or sheep milk whey powder, which is great because it has twice the protein of goat or cow whey.”