At Cato Corner Farm we make raw farmstead cheese by hand from the delicious milk of our 45 Jersey cows.  The cows are humanely raised on a pasture-based diet without growth hormones or subtherapeutic antibiotics.  We feed a small amount of grain to complement the nutrition in the grass and hay.  Our cheeses are our own unique recipes, based on traditional cheese making styles and highlighting the flavor and terroir of our pastures and our farm. Cato Corner Farm is owned and managed by the mother-son team of Elizabeth MacAlister and Mark Gillman.  Here’s a bit of their story:    

Liz MacAlister on Maintaining the Herd and Preserving the Land: I began making cheese in 1997.  After raising goats and sheep since the 1970s, along with a few cows and chickens, the farm was not self-supporting.  I saw cheese as a value-added product that would allow me to keep farming and earn a living.  I started with 13 cows, selling cheese at farmers’ markets and a few area stores.

We’ve come a long way since then!  Since Mark took over the cheese making, I am now in charge of the farm and the herd, as well as managing our NYC farmers’ markets.  We are milking 45 cows twice a day, and we have another 40-50 heifers and calves. Our cows are mostly Jerseys, but we have one Brown Swiss and we’ve just started to breed with Normande bulls from France.  We have a closed herd, which means we don’t buy cows from other farms – we keep the best of our heifers and sell the rest to other dairies.