Idyll Farms Takes Home Three Awards at 2016 World Championship Cheese Contest

NORTHPORT, Mich., March 17, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Idyll Farms, a sustainable, pasture-based farmstead goat creamery located in Northport, Michigan, received three awards in this year's World Championship Cheese Contest in Madison, Wisconsin.

Of the nearly 3,000 entries from 23 countries submitted to the 20^th biannual competition worldwide (the largest technical cheese competition in the world), Idyll Farms' Idyll Gris, a soft ripened, ash dusted goat cheese, was named both Best of Class and Second Place in the contest's Surface Ripened Goat's Milk Cheeses category. Additionally, the farm's brand new product, Idyll Pastures, a Garlic and Herbs-flavored fresh goat cheese, placed third in the Flavored Soft Goat's Milk Cheeses category.

"We are honored to receive this recognition by some of the world's leading experts in the cheese industry," said Mark Spitznagel, who along with his wife Amy owns the farm which they founded in 2010. Mark is also the founder and Chief Investment Officer of the hedge fund management firm Universa Investments, based in Miami. "At Idyll Farms we can coordinate and manage all of the symbiotically moving parts in our production process, from pastures to goats to creamery, and this is precisely how we make some of the best cheese in the world."

Idyll Farms' 200 acres of rolling, chemical-free pastures in northern Michigan, its growing herd of 200 certified-humane Alpine goats, and its modern creamery plant are all meticulously and vertically integrated in the production process. Unlike conventionally managed dairy animals raised primarily on grain diets for the production of most commercially available cheeses (and some artisanal cheeses), Idyll Farms' goats are pasture-fed using rotational grazing practices which mimic and harness nature's complex, productive processes. This pasture and herd management is coordinated with Idyll Farms' state-of-the-art creamery production that constantly adjusts to the diverse seasonal milk variables, resulting in a holistic and ecologically sustainable farmstead creamery.

Idyll Farms' artisanal cheese have previously won other accolades, including multiple and repeat awards at the America Cheese Society North American Competition in 2013 and 2014 (the farm's first two years of production)—which included the broader all milk cheese category—and a "Best Artisanal Cheese" from Food & Wine magazine earlier this year.

SOURCE Idyll Farms