To the uninitiated, “Flory’s Truckle” might sound like an especially whimsical cheese name, dreamt up by a contemporary, hipster cheesemaker. In reality the name is as pragmatic as it gets, in line with the values of the Missouri-based, German Baptist family that makes it. “Flory” is simply the surname of the farmstead family in question, and “Truckle” refers to the shape of their singular cheese: a tall, barrel-shaped cylinder commonly used in certain varieties of cheddar. It isn’t so much whimsy as downright accuracy, but fortunately for the cheese and everyone involved with it, the name is definitely one of its many memorable qualities.
If you’re already a fan of Flory’s Truckle, you might have heard rumblings that it had been discontinued, so you should be thrilled to learn that Flory’s Truckle is back. In the spirit of accuracy, however, it must be said that Flory’s Truckle isn’t so much “back,” since it never fully disappeared in the first place. It merely changed hands from one set of aging and distributing circumstances to another, and in the transfer became a victim of a well-intentioned but ultimately unfortunate miscommunication. We’ll spill that tea, but first, the cheese.
What is Flory’s Truckle?
Flory’s Truckle is an aged, clothbound Cheddar cheese made from raw milk collected both from the Flory family’s herd of Jersey cows, and that purchased from other local farms. In the English Cheddar tradition, the truckles are wrapped in cloth badges and coated with lard, where they remain in place during the aging process of up to 18 months to develop a crumbly, occasionally crunchy, aged Cheddar texture. “Flory’s Truckle packs a truckload of flavor,” according to its tasting notes at The Cheese Shop of Salem. “It is sharp, meaty, salty, and sweet — like the cheese-version of bacon.” Murray’s Cheese calls out its “unparalleled peppery aroma and rich grassy flavor.” (I will also happily confess to a “whoa, what is this?” moment myself when I first tasted Flory’s Truckle.)
History of Flory’s Truckle and Partnership with Milton Creamery
Jennifer Heam, the eldest daughter of Tim Flory who originally created Flory’s Truckle, spoke to me about its history. “Our goal has always been to be a small family farm,” says Heam. “We have no outside, hired help, and Dad built the cheese plant for all of us girls.” (There are 8 Flory daughters who’ve all had a hand in Flory’s Truckle at one time or another.) “For every single one of us, that was our job,” says Heam. While several of her sisters have married and moved off of the family property, Heam is still very involved with the cheese production.
Part of being a small family farm, however, meant that space for a cheese aging facility was at a premium, and wasn’t initially a priority. “When we got into the cheese business back in 2008, we traveled around to different areas and visited a lot of cheese facilities to see what kind of equipment it took to get started,” says Heam. Milton Creamery, (of Prairie Breeze fame,) owned by the Musser family and located in southern Iowa, turned out to be more than just a resource for the Florys. “Milton Creamery was the closest facility to us, and we became friends with them,” says Heam. “They were a lot of help for us getting set up and troubleshooting things.” What started as almost a mentorship relationship turned into an actual partnership. “We both saw the opportunity to work together. We called them a sister plant,” says Heam. Milton Creamery would become the affineur for Flory’s Truckle. The truckles were formed, bandaged, and held at the Flory farm for the requisite 60 days in order to meet regulatory standards for raw milk cheeses, then were transferred to the Milton operation to age out for the remaining months, and to be put out to distributors.
As an intentionally small, German Baptist family farm that operates without the internet, the production of Flory’s Truckle stayed roughly the same over time, but the Milton Creamery operation grew significantly during the almost 15 years of their partnership. As a partnership that was also based in friendship, “We had an agreement with Milton Creamery that they had to give us at least a year’s notice if they wanted to drop the aging and distribution for us,” says Heam, which is exactly the notice that was given to the Florys when Milton Creamery grew to the level that they wanted to focus solely on their own production. “So we had one year’s notice, and in that time period we built our own aging facility,” says Heam.
Continuing the Legacy of Flory’s Truckle and Partnership with Fox River Dairy
It’s important to note that the split from Milton Creamery was not an acrimonious one, given the mutual respect for the terms of their initial agreement. The struggle became simply one of communication, when Milton Creamery indicated on their website that Flory’s Truckle was “discontinued.” “That was them saying that Flory’s Truckle had been discontinued from their facility,” says Heam, “not meaning that it had been discontinued from the market, but I think that’s how a lot of distributors took it.”
Milton Creamery shared its distributor information with the Florys, who then took it upon themselves to try to get the word out that Flory’s Truckle was still available. (Without the advantages of email or other instantaneous communication, you can imagine this was no small undertaking.) “We’ve spent the last year and a half to 2 years, trying to get back up on top of it,” says Heam.
One of the distributors the Florys reached out to was Dan Probst at Fox River Dairy, who was in the process of buying his own warehouse and storage cooler facility. “He saw the opportunity not to do exactly what Milton was doing, because we’re doing all of the aging now,” says Heam, “but once it’s finished, he takes it to his facility, and he’s been amazing.”
As for the cheese itself, it’s an understandable source of pride for the Florys to now have complete control of the production of Flory’s Truckle. “We can see the process from start to finish under one roof, and we have much, much more quality control than what we did before,” says Heam.
Discontinued? Made by the Amish? Aged in Iowa? We hope we’ve cleared up these persistent misconceptions. For the record, Flory’s Truckle was never taken out of production and is now both made and aged by the German Baptist Flory family in Missouri and is available from Fox River Dairy. Ask for it at your favorite cheese shop or cheese counter.