Oakvale Farmstead Gouda Cheese

Our Story

We appreciate where we live and the job we are given as stewards of the environment. We love our cows and the milk they give us for our famous cheese.

- Oakvale Farmstead Gouda Cheese

Oakvale Farm is located in Madison County, approximately 20 miles west of Columbus Ohio, where our family has been milking cows since 1853.

Our family makes Farmstead Gouda, a cheese originating in Holland. Our milk is similar to what Dutch cheese makers use for their Gouda. Holland’s milk source is mainly Holstein-Friesian dairy cattle that produce higher fat and protein content than average U.S. Holsteins and less volume of milk. Our mission is to provide a wholesome, superior Farmstead Gouda while providing our Consumers with knowledge of their food supply origin and a connection to our family farm.

Our agricultural roots run deep in the central Ohio area, where our family has been milking cows since 1853. We appreciate where we live and the job we are given as stewards of the environment.

Over the past few years, our following varieties have won awards at the annual “American Cheese Society” competition.

* 2006 - American Cheese Society, Portland Oregon. “Farmstead Jalapeño Gouda”, 2nd place.

* 2005 - American Cheese Society, Louisville, Kentucky. “Farmstead Gouda”, 2nd place. “Farmstead Caraway Gouda”, 3rd place.

* 2004 - American Cheese Society, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. “Farmstead Gouda”, 2nd place. “Farmstead Aged Gouda”, 3rd place.

About Our Girls (Our Cows)

Eighty dairy cows, mostly registered Holsteins, along with seven Brown Swiss and a couple of Jerseys, call Oakvale home. Our girls are a part of our family. We do everything possible to make them comfortable and happy while they are here. While dairy cows nationally average four years old, our Oakvale girls average eight years old.

Oakvale cows are fed a diet of our own quality timothy, alfalfa, and orchard grass hay mix, and corn silage from corn grown on our farm. They graze on pastures, weather permitting. During wet weather, they stay inside the barn to preserve the pastures from getting trampled and eroding. Their diet is balanced by a nutritionist to ensure their health at all times. When a cow is 65-70 days from having a calf, she is “dried up”, which means we stop milking her to give her a break so that she can prepare for calving. When the cows are not milking, they rest up on fifty acres of pasture.

We participate in a testing program called Dairy Herd Improvement, Inc., a cooperative owned by dairy farmers. DHI sends a tester once a month to the farm and takes a milk sample from each cow and measures the volume of milk she gives. This identifies our top quality producers. It is an effective tool to help us continue to improve our milk as a whole. Also, every day the milk tank contents are picked up to be sold for fluid consumption and the milk is sampled by the Ohio Department of Agriculture.