This month, a new Vermont cheese lands in retail stores around the state. Like many of the region’s cultured dairy products, the inaugural batch has been made by a dedicated, hands-on artisan from the milk of one herd or flock. Unlike any other product in the dairy case, the new Vermont Way Foods organic farmer cheese is the first to tout explicitly on its label that the milk comes from farmers who have pledged to treat their workers fairly through Migrant Justice’s Milk With Dignity program.
The statewide farmworker-led advocacy nonprofit created Milk With Dignity to address poor working conditions in the dairy business, in which migrant workers play a crucial role. The program sets standards for wages, housing, schedules, health and safety. It also provides education and support for farmers and workers to ensure compliance.
In 2017, Vermont’s global ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s signed the Milk With Dignity pledge for its Northeastern U.S. supply chain. As part of that agreement, the company pays a premium on its milk purchases to subsidize higher wages, improved conditions, and the cost of education and audits. A 2024 Migrant Justice report tallied the positive impacts for more than 250 workers in Vermont and New York, thanks to more than $5 million invested in the required improvements.
By contrast, the inaugural 100-pound run of the new Vermont Way Foods organic farmer cheese bearing the Milk With Dignity logo is a drop in the milk bucket, so to speak. But Migrant Justice and the coalition of Vermont nonprofits that have been working together for more than two years to launch the cheese believe that, as the effort grows, it will help move the farmworkers’ cause forward in new ways.
“Having a brand of cheese with the Milk With Dignity logo makes it clear that the program exists and that other brands can follow suit,” said Thelma Gómez, a Migrant Justice leader from Tabasco, Mexico, who has worked on several dairy farms in Addison County.
The recipe for the soft, meltable cheese was developed by Middlebury cheesemaker Carleton Yoder of Champlain Valley Creamery. It is based loosely on his queso fresco and lightly flavored with herbs from Free Verse Farm & Apothecary in Chelsea. Yoder is making the cheese for Vermont Way Foods with the same milk he uses for his own line of cheeses: organic, 100 percent grass-fed milk from Severy Farm in Cornwall. Seven-ounce wedges have a suggested retail price of $7.99 to $8.99.
The first run of 240 shrink-wrapped wedges sold quickly to about 20 independent grocers, farmstands and food co-ops around the state, including Rail City Market in St. Albans, Stowe Village Market, the Brattleboro Food Co-op and both City Market locations in Burlington.
“Consumers can feel proud buying a cheese and knowing that they’re part of something that farmworkers themselves have built,” Gómez continued in an email translated from Spanish.
Vermont Way Foods is a collaborative brand owned by four food hubs: the Center for an Agricultural Economy in Hardwick, Food Connects in Brattleboro, Green Mountain Farm-to-School in Newport and the Intervale Center in Burlington. It helps Vermont farmers reach large New England customers and currently sells vegetables to regional chains such as Market Basket.
The Milk With Dignity partnership project, dubbed “Cheese With Dignity,” is the first for which the brand has developed a new food product. Vermont Way Foods was founded “to highlight the intention and integrity of Vermont farmers and food producers,” explained Catherine Cusack, Green Mountain Farm-to-School executive director. “That starts in the field and the barn. It goes all the way back to the worker.”
Research and development costs were covered in part by a U.S. Department of Agriculture Organic Market Development Grant awarded in early 2024 to the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont. The farmer cheese is the first organic product made under a Milk With Dignity agreement, and Will Lambek of Migrant Justice said the nonprofit hopes it will raise the program’s profile in the organic dairy sector.
Nate Severy of Severy Farm signed the Milk With Dignity pledge last fall in order to sell milk to the Vermont Way Foods farmer cheese project. The small organic farm — where he milks 60 cows with the help of his dad, Joe — has only ever employed U.S. citizens, Severy said.
But whatever the background of his workers, he sees a benefit to establishing benchmarks that ensure all are treated fairly and equally. Severy Farm does not currently have any nonfamily employees but will follow Milk With Dignity standards when it hires in the future, the farmer said.
If you want to have future generations farming, you need to make sure that you have good working conditions.
NATE SEVERY
“If you want to have future generations farming, you need to make sure that you have good working conditions that create a positive atmosphere,” Severy said.
Lambek said Migrant Justice believes all dairy workers stand to gain from Milk With Dignity. The standards “created by this one community can have a broader benefit,” he said.
He acknowledged that the farmer cheese project is starting small, but he and his Migrant Justice colleagues hope big things will come of it.
“This is starting out with one cheese, one producer, one farm,” Lambek said. “If it resonates in the market and customers are looking for ‘cheese with dignity,’ then that will create the opportunity for more production.”
Based on taste alone, the cheese should be an easy sell. Lambek said farmworkers enjoyed test batches melted in quesadillas. Yoder, the cheesemaker, likes it on pizza with red onions and black olives.
Doug Paine, executive chef at Westport Hospitality, which owns Hotel Vermont and the soon-to-reopen Harborvale hotel and restaurant, helped brainstorm some recipes for Vermont Way Foods. He likens the “soft and meltable” farmer cheese texturally to Monterey Jack. The mild, delicately herby flavor has a little tang, Paine said.
The chef said it makes a great grilled cheese and suggested pairing it with apricot jam, thinly sliced ham and Dijon mustard. It would also be perfect melted on a burger, Paine said.
Gómez has tried the cheese and liked it very much. “We’ve brought it to a number of community events, and the community has enjoyed it,” she said. “Dignity tastes great.” ➆
The original print version of this article was headlined “Cheese for a Cause | Migrant Justice and Vermont Way Foods partner to launch a cheese under the Milk With Dignity program”
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