VERNON COUNTY, Wis. – UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer L. Mnookin made stops at three area businesses on Nov. 18 to highlight the connections between the UW system and the Drifless Region. The University said the purpose of the tour was to highlight “the deep ties to the area, with more than 128 current undergraduate students from Vernon and Monroe counties, and 1,097 alumni and 53 employees residing in the area. UW–Madison has numerous notable partnerships with local businesses, health care centers and other organizations.”
First stop on the area tour was Hidden Springs Creamery in rural Westby. Amy and Travis Forgues purchased Hidden Springs Creamery about two years ago when the previous owner decided to retire. Amy and Travis both grew up on family farms in Vermont. Amy’s family ran a maple syrup farm, while Travis started on a dairy farm. In their early 20s, Amy and Travis moved to the Forgues family farm and transitioned the conventional dairy farm into an organic operation. When their local organic dairy processor sold to a larger company, Amy and Travis contacted Organic Valley in La Farge, Wisconsin, to explore becoming an Organic Valley Farm. Amy and Travis found 60 neighbors willing to transition to the farmer’s co-op, and together they started the first Vermont Organic Valley Farmers Pool.
Years later, they moved to the Driftless area to work at Organic Valley and support farmers like themselves. Travis as the head of Organic Valley Farmer Pools, and Amy working with upcoming farmers in the Young Farmer Program. When the opportunity came up to purchase Hidden Springs, the couple took the jump.
Travis Forgues said they took that leap, in part, because their research showed that the U.S. currently imports 99 percent of the commodities to produce sheep’s milk products here in the U.S. from outside of the country.
“Only one percent comes from here in the U.S.,” said Travis. “That seems like a huge potential market opportunity.”
Amy Forgues said the support they have received from partnerships like the UW system, and specifically the Dairy Business Innovation Alliance (DBIA) that provided them with grant money, have enabled their operation to grow and thrive. Those grants allowed them to purchase vital equipment like a whey pump that will enable them to use the whey to make a ricotta cheese, and also send some of that whey to Birch Point Distillery that just broke ground in Westby, to be converted to spirits.
“Yeah, so we have tripled in sales in the last 18 months and we do expect to grow quite a bit more in 2025,” said Forgues. “We have a commitment from Whole Foods, 46 stores, the Midwest Whole Foods to take on our Driftless Cheese, which is our flagship cheese, which will represent you know probably somewhere between 15 and 30 percent bump in sales for our cheeses. Which is going to help us be more sustainable, but then also we’re adding another full-time employee here in December, and we’re taking on a neighbor farm as well and buying that. So we’re able to kind of help the local community a little bit more as we’re increasing our sales.”
UW–Chancellor Mnookin said the connections to the Driftless are crucial to business development and making the University better at serving the the whole state.
“We both have a lot of alums who are in this part of in this gorgeous part of the state and we have students coming to Madison from the Driftless Region,” said Mnookin. “And we also have deep connections with agriculture in general, just broadly conceived, including dairy and including more specialty products like like sheep’s milk. And thinking about how our Center for Dairy Research, and how what we’re doing at Madison can help support the needs, interests and economic possibilities of farmers all over the state is absolutely a priority for us.”
Mnookin said the tour showed that the kind of support and those connections are producing the exact outcomes they hope for.
“It warms my heart to hear Amy talking about how those grants are game changers,” said Mnookin. “They’re creating new economic opportunities for them as owners, and also how our Center for Dairy Research has been able to share knowledge and information to help her be able to make her business successful. And that’s exactly what we want to do. We want to both help with innovation and new ideas, but also help with what folks need. How can we bring the knowledge and expertise of our university to help support the strength of farmers in Wisconsin.”
Chancellor Mnookin would travel from Hidden Springs to Ogranic Valley and later to Wonderstate Coffee to explore more of the those connections to the region.
Jim Natzke with the DBIA has been working with the Forgues’ and mentoring them over the last 18 months. Natzke had high praise for the Forgues’ entrepreneurial spirit.
“I think they are fearless,” said Natzke. “I think they’re very courageous to take on a business like this, and I have about 30 years experience in the Wisconsin cheese industry, and anything I can do to help them out as far as business planning or market determination, or some the cheese making things aren’t necessarily my expertise, but there are a lot of people at the Center for Dairy Research that I can connect them to. A lot of times I don’t know the answers to what they’re asking, but I know where to find those answers and can get back to them. So, I’ve been in communication with them basically on a weekly basis for the last few months, just just talking about things and trying to determine, you know, when they get to decision point I think it’s helpful for them to talk to somebody and to get some more information. And the other thing is, I guess sometimes they just need to hear like, yes, this is a good idea, go for it and and you can do it.”
Natzke said the grants provided to entrepreneurs do not solve all their problems, but many times it is the leg up to take some of the risk out of trying something new.
“So when you’re starting out, there’s a lot of capital investment that takes place,” Natzke said. “The grants don’t cover everything. I mean, they still have to have a lot of skin in the game, but sometimes the grants make the business plan work because what it does is take some of that upfront money and offsets that with some grant money so that the payback becomes more certain.”
Natzke said the risk is even higher when trying to get consumers to try a new product.
“They (Hidden Springs) definitely have high quality product, they win lots of awards,” said Natzke. “But how do you get that to market? How do you get people to try that? A lot of times with a new innovative product like this, particularly like a sheep milk, people don’t know that they if they like it or not. They’re not going to spend a lot of money on it if it’s a big risk. So you gotta get people to try it. You gotta get it in front of people and you have to you have to get partners in the distribution and the retail business who are willing to take a chance on them and give them a chance in their system.”
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