Tastes like Italy, made in Bennington
NEAL GOSWAMI, Staff Writer 

September 25, 2007
BENNINGTON — If Johann Englert and Michael Scheps have their way, Bennington will soon be the cheese capital of the Vermont — and not just for cheddar. Englert and Scheps, co-owners of Maplebrook Farm — maker of fresh, handmade artisan cheeses — seem to have little in common outside of work. The one thing they do share, however, is a love and commitment to producing quality cheese and an even stronger love and commitment to using local Vermont products and workers to produce it.
    "My thing was, let's tell everyone this cheese was made where the mountains are green and the clouds are white," said Englert during a recent interview.
    The duo, separated by age and gender among other things, has taken the homegrown Vermont company from just a few employees to 14 in just four years and now produce up to 70,000 pounds of cheese each year that is distributed along the East Coast.
The company was formed in 2003, after Englert, formerly of Boston, paid a visit to a small, Italian groceria in Manchester owned by Scheps' family. Scheps, a third-generation cheese maker, had just made a fresh batch of mozzarella, the likes of which Englert
 said she had never tasted before.
    "I saw the mozzarella on the counter and being Italian, it reminded me of being in Italy," Englert said.  She bought 20 balls of mozzarella and brought them back to Boston with her. But she didn't just give them away or consume them, however. Instead, she brought them to several gourmet shops in Boston and five out of six of them wanted more. And so a business was born.
    "It just came so naturally to me that I don't think much of it," Englert said. "I was in bed one night and I said, 'Why can't we buy this in Boston? Why can't we get a nice hand stretched mozzarella?'"
    The orders quickly began to grow in numbers and Englert and Scheps needed more and more space; from a kitchen, to a small store to a large production facility where 20,000 balls of mozzarella can be produced each week.  Although pleased, Englert said she was hardly surprised, despite her seemingly amateur business plan. Admittedly, her only experience in the food service industry was in "good eating and cooking." "I decided that if I was going to do it I was going to do it big," she said. "This is just my business plan off the top of my head. If you went to business college they would tell you that's not the way to do it."
    But it has worked for Maplebrook Farm. The company now works out of a large facility on East Road in Bennington, filled with shining stainless steel sinks and counters where the cheese makers, personally trained by Scheps, work. The company's own refrigerated truck delivers its cheese to many stores, including 57 Whole Foods Market stores in the Northeast.  It was a gamble that happened to pay off, said Englert. But she has been known to take risks before, she said.  "I definitely have been entrepreneurial. I would say that I've had three or four careers in my lifetime. This is the biggest so far and I'm having a ball," she said.
    There is no question the product is Vermont made, either. The milk is purchased in the Northeast Kingdom at a dairy farm in Hardwick. The company has a facility on the farm that turns the hormone-free milk into curd, the base of all cheese products. The curd is then shipped to Bennington where cheese makers turn it into fresh mozzarella, ricotta, cheddar bites and soon, provolone.  The goal for the company is to market and distribute Maplebrook Farm cheese nationwide. According to Englert, a West Coast sales person is in California working to secure orders.
    And while looking to expand ever further, the company will not stop looking to utilize local products and employees, said Englert. The company may soon be looking to enlarge its production facility in Bennington and to secure deals with dairy farms in Bennington County to supply milk.