It’s not a hometown brag to say that Philadelphia has a wildly numerous and revolutionary culinary neighborhood. Get a sudden yearning for world-class cheese in the course of the night time and Yoav Perry, founding father of Perrystead Dairy, has you coated. His 24-hour, automated cheese dispensary provides round the clock entry to Perrystead’s 4 signature alternatives (three year-round and one seasonal), collectively representing 16 nationwide and worldwide awards acquired since 2022, together with a number of Silver and Bronze on the 2023-2024 World Cheese Awards, and a 2024 trifecta from the American Cheese Society: Gold, Silver, and Bronze.
His stocked nine-shelf merchandising machine, housed in a shiny purple sales space topped by a compact neon “CHEESE” signal, is greater than a novelty. Perry designed it as a sensible but hospitable resolution to the interruptions he and his workers skilled every day when individuals knocked on the dairy’s glass doorways anticipating to purchase cheese.
As a result of Perrystead is in Philadelphia’s traditionally industrial Olde Kensington neighborhood (which is slowly revitalizing into a contemporary city residential combine after a long time of financial decline), prospects assumed they might cease by the dairy and purchase on the supply, as with the opposite makers settling into repurposed warehouses and factories. Nevertheless, as a extremely regulated, inspected, and third-party-audited place, a dairy will not be arrange for retail visitors.
“We’re strict about what we will do right here,” Perry says. “Additionally, if you end up making cheese, that cheese is the boss. It has its personal schedule and received’t pause whereas we end up a retail sale. Bacterial cultures watch for nobody.”
Say Cheese
For its sheer enjoyable issue, the dispensary is an attraction for selfie-seeking meals vacationers. However most prospects reside inside 15 blocks. “The purchasing on this space has not developed on the pace of the house choices,” says Perry, who additionally shares the merchandising machine with the identical charcuterie specialties he ships in his direct-to-consumer (DTC) present bins, full of biodegradable pure sheep’s wool insulating the cheese at twice the worth of 1-inch Styrofoam. “There are occasions when individuals stand in line to get to the sales space, and we frequently refill a number of occasions over the weekends. I assume it’s one thing this neighborhood by no means knew it wanted.”
Like most grasp craftspeople, Perry brings a lifetime of abilities and pursuits to the work he does immediately. When his hobbyist ardour for fermenting turned to cheesemaking, he utilized his 17 years as a tech designer to launch an e-commerce useful resource for specialty European substances. “It was 2012, and there have been cheesemaking provides accessible—simply not on the stage of obsession I had gotten myself into,” he says. “I already had the tech instruments to design and create DTC infrastructure, automate delivery, deal with authorized compliance, importing/exporting, and logistics. That was the straightforward half.”
Tougher was the fast progress. By 2014, he was delivery to cheesemakers in additional than 36 nations from the basement of his New York house constructing; he later rented a warehouse and employed a success firm outdoors town to take over. “I used to be uninterested in chasing packages,” Perry says. “DTC is numerous logistics, monitoring, and customs. You need to turn out to be an knowledgeable to outlive, and it’s not precisely the inventive enjoyable of cheesemaking.”
City Creamery
By the point he closed the e-commerce enterprise in 2017, Perry was absolutely immersed on the earth of cheese as a revered guide and maker. On request from Eleven Madison Park in New York, recipient of three Michelin stars and named one of many “Greatest Eating places within the World,” he developed a cheese that stayed on the menu for 3 seasons.
As a result of the working numbers didn’t help opening an city dairy in New York Metropolis, Perry had moved his household to Philadelphia, positioned in a state that ranks second nationally within the variety of dairy farms. “I wished to start out an city creamery throughout the economic system of my neighborhood, and there are such a lot of unimaginable alternatives right here,” he says. “From the start, my plan was to interrupt new concepts and add new worth to Pennsylvania-sourced milk by making a enterprise mannequin useful to our farmers doing actually onerous work.”
Perry’s help of small household dairy farmers who prioritize regenerative and animal husbandry practices is important for a long-term provide of the distinctive milk high quality required for his demanding cheeses. “You can not make world-class cheese with out world-class milk. It would sound pretentious, however I name it a series of goodness,” Perry says.
To replicate their worth, he ensures these farmers are paid a premium for his or her milk, even when it means paying as much as double the fluctuating regulated fee. “Then we create our Perrystead high-value-added merchandise (the processing and enhancement of milk past its plain liquid state) right here within the metropolis the place we’ve got culinary expertise, purveyors, newspapers and magazines, and restaurant excursions to advertise gross sales and construct recognition,” he says.
Actually American Cheese
In constructing his enterprise, Perry utilized for and acquired two important grants: The inexperienced mild to start out the dairy operation got here by way of a Pennsylvania Dairy Funding Program grant, authorized in 2020 for $126,000. Transferring rapidly, he then found out a product line and market match, acquired press, received awards, achieved nationwide distribution, and established a DTC program.
In 2023, he was awarded a Dairy Enlargement Grant from the Northeast Dairy Innovation Heart, receiving a $170,000 allotment in 2024, which allowed him to maneuver from farmstead-style gear to an increased-capacity setup with automated gear for course of efficiencies. “We are able to make much more with far much less sources, fulfill coast-to-coast orders, and enhance our DTC enterprise,” he says. “Over the following 18 or so months, we need to accomplish 5 to 6 occasions our present quantity, which additionally means bringing extra farmers onboard, new packaging, and elevated gross sales group.”
As a result of America lacks the restrictions and advantages of a conventional cheese tradition like Greece with feta or Italy with Parmigiano-Reggiano, Perry is free to search out inspiration wherever it strikes. His Atlantis, a supple cheese washed with North Atlantic seawater and speckled with edible seaweed, displays maritime biodiversity and offers the cheese a real sense of place. Intergalactic, a comfortable cheese set with cardoon thistle flowers as a substitute of animal rennet, reinterprets an historical Roman approach for contemporary America.
“It’s time to create our personal cheesemaking custom,” Perry says. “I really like the Mona Lisa, however do we have to maintain re-creating it?”