Fruition Farms Creamery

In 2009 celebrated Denver chef Alex Seidel contacted me wanting help with a project that he was rolling around in his head. He had recently purchased a small 10 acre farm south of Denver, near Larkspur, and already had a greenhouse out there growing microgreens for not only his own restaurant, Fruition, but for other high end kitchens as well and he was wanting to put together a dairy and creamery. He had recently been to a symposium on dairy farming in the Hudson Valley of New York and had become inspired to raise East Fresian sheep and make some of his own cheeses. Thus began a project lasting over a year that saw Alex and I, along with his then sous chef Jimmy Warren, design and construct a dairy and creamery facility from scratch, doing most of the construction including framing, drywalling, tiling, and welding ourselves. Simultaneously we were making small test batches of cheese in my own kitchen and aging them in a small wine refrigerator as well as developing the packaging and marketing aspects of the business. Once the facility was ready to operate the small herd of East Fresian sheep were brought to the property and milking and the cheese making began. Giving ourselves only a couple of weeks of real R&D before deciding we had a truly remarkable product to offer to local chefs and retailers. The first item to hit the market was the Sheep’s Milk Ricotta and it was an immediate success, even taking home the top award for its category at the American Cheese Society’s annual competition that first year.