How We Started
Sarah Hoffmann was working as a doctor at the University of Washington when she started dreaming about running her own farm. She’d grown up on a farm and loved it, and her Aunt Jean—who ran a gourmet cheese shop back when women business owners were few and far between—inspired her to pursue both fine cheesemaking and entrepreneurship. In 2002, Sarah took the leap and started her dairy, beginning her journey of crafting sheep’s milk cheeses at Green Dirt Farm in Northwest Missouri.
Today, more than twenty-two years later, Sarah runs the farm alongside her daughter, Eliza, and a dedicated team. What started as a dairy has grown into a retail store and café, a restaurant, and agritourism experiences—all showcasing the cheeses we make right here in our cheese kitchen on our Animal Welfare Approved® farm. We’re living our dreams and doing the groundwork (literally!) to craft amazing cheese in a way that’s both humane and sustainable. We’re doing the groundwork (literally!) to craft fantastic cheese in a humane, sustainable way.
But don’t just take our word for it. Since we started making cheese commercially in 2008, we’ve earned over 90 awards from the artisan cheese community—including four at the 2025 American Cheese Society competition. In 2023, our Prairie Tomme (a hard sheep’s milk cheese) took 3rd place in Best in Show at the ACS competition, beating out over 1,400 American artisanal cheeses! Read more on our blog about our awards. We’ve also been honored to receive Good Food Awards in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2024, and 2025. And in 2021, Food & Wine named us among the 50 best cheesemakers in the US: https://www.foodandwine.com/lifestyle/best-cheese-america