“It’s wrong to say you’re an artisan if you don’t start with the raw material.” Paula Lambert, The Mozzarella Company

“An artisanal producer doesn’t change their milk, they change their recipe.” Allison Hooper, Vermont Creamery

“Artisanal is relatively small production, largely made by hand.” (How do you define small?) “Small enough to be made by hand!” Peter Mohn, formerly of Grafton Village Cheesemaking Company

“I am not a farmstead operation. I am a cheesemaker. It doesn’t matter if it’s farmstead or artisanal. It’s not industrial because there are no machines. I wanted to work with my hands and brain. I wanted to understand the mystery of life. But I am very small.” Soyoung Scanlan, Andante Dairy

“Artisanal is small-scale and a lot of hand work. If it's small-scale you can't afford much automation. Whatever scale you cut off at is kind of arbitrary, but it’s hard to claim you're artisanal if you make more than 500 thousand pounds of cheese a year... yeah I don't know how you define artisanal. There is another factor and that's the intent of the cheesemaker. An artisanal cheesemaker is trying to produce something special and different.” Mike Gingrich, Uplands Cheese Company

“It's now a buzzword, fast food restaurants have artisan breads. We make cheese from the milk of our own flock. Some call it farmstead. These are our own cheeses and we hope you like them.” Barbara Levin, Hope Farm

“Artisan cheese is more creative and more made by hand but I think it could be-- more creative is my definition. You can get bigger on a comparative scale. If we get bigger we’ll still be tiny.” Kathy Obringer, Ancient Heritage Dairy

“A commitment to the process of making cheese by hand and that process is by hand from start to finish. It’s a process of being connected to a single source of dairy when it’s defined in cheese and being connected to that source daily. Understanding what the milk is, how it’s different from yesterday and the week prior. It’s a process of having --and this is probably where we’re different—the process of having an apprenticeship program. Always being committed to being better.” David Gremmels, Rogue Creamery