Heroes of American Manufacturing: Sweet Grass Dairy

GaMEP client Sweet Grass Dairy uses cheese as the vehicle to tell the story of high-quality milk and a unique farming style. These cheese manufacturers, located in South Georgia, have handcrafted the most flavorful and high quality cheeses possible from the milk of healthy, barn-free cows grazing on grass grown year round under the Georgia sun. The Sweet Grass Dairy difference is their commitment to maintaining the raw ingredient. With 60 employees between their cheese manufacturing and production facility, full-service restaurant and retail cheese shop and a separate ecommerce shipping area, their mission is to try to change how people view the American food system through their cheeses. When COVID hit, they lost about 78% of their sales because Sweet Grass Dairy was built on selling through the food service channels. They knew they needed help and reached out to GaMEP. In 2020, their ecommerce business soared, and they grew by about 400%. They realized end consumers do want to support small family farms and know where their food comes from. GaMEP has helped Sweet Grass Dairy with many different projects from food safety and trainings to marketing projects as they pivoted to an ecommerce platform. Everybody deserves great food and everybody deserves to know where their food is coming from. Small and medium-sized manufacturers like Sweet Grass Dairy are an essential part of their community and of the food manufacturing industry. What they do makes a difference, even though they are small. Food manufacturers are a powerful group and are important to our country.<br>