Goat cheese gains popularity as alternative to cow’s milk cheese

PARNELL (MCT) — With two of their nine children allergic to cow’s milk, Matt and Kim Brenneman have had to adjust the family’s diet.

Even more, their daughters’ milk intolerance inspired a startup business selling goat cheese at area farmers markets and to restaurants and stores.

“We’re having fun,” Kim Brenneman said. “People are excited about local food, and it tastes good — it’s fresh.”

Brenneman Farmstead Cheese began selling goat cheese to the public in May, but their introduction to goat milk goes back more than a decade.

When the girls, Bridgette, 15, and Brooke, 10, were younger, friends suggested goat milk.
According to Oklahoma State University Extension, the lactose (milk sugar) content of goat’s milk is slightly lower than cow’s milk, making it easier to digest. The physical characteristics of goat milk’s protein composition gives it a softer, finer curd, allowing it to dissolve more rapidly in the digestive system.

In 2007, a neighbor, in jest, gave Bridgette Brenneman a doe named Esther and a buck so she could start her own herd to provide milk.

Esther produced enough milk for the girls, and then some. They experimented with the milk, making yogurt, pudding and eventually, cheese.

Bridgette read books about cheese making, collected recipes online and gathered tips from Lois Reichart of Reichart’s Dairy Air in Knoxville, Iowa’s first licensed micro dairy.

Soon, the Brennemans had concocted their own goat cheese.

It has been a hit this summer at farmers markets in Homestead, Williamsburg, Iowa City and Cedar Rapids. The dill and garlic flavor is the most popular with cranberry horseradish following close behind. Plain logs are also popular.

“People like to use it in recipes and put in their own herbs,” Brenneman said. “Every week we hear of new things — on top of broasted beets, in squash blossoms.”

Ken Price, cheese buyer at New Pioneer Food Co-op in Iowa City, said goat cheese sales have climbed over the years. The store carries a variety of goat cheese, also known as chevre (French for goat), including Reichart’s and Brenneman’s.

“It can be a love/hate thing” with consumers, Price said. “It’s a bit more tangy and zippy. It’s potentially kind of gamy.”