R & G Cheese
Sean O’Connor didn’t have a background in cheesemaking when he decided to make a career shift; it’s a mid-life crisis by his own account. Originally from Troy, O’Connor lived in southern California for 12 years working at a computer supply company in Orange County. While he was there, due to personal interest, he enrolled in a culinary certificate program at UCLA. The courses, taught by professional chefs, stoked O’Connor’s love of cooking and mastery of technique. Things were going well, but as the economy began to make its downturn and O’Connor and his wife watched their home value rise, they decided, with their one-year-old son in tow, to move back home.
Although O’Connor didn’t have a plan for his next career move, he knew he didn’t want to work in restaurants. However, he kept coming back to the idea of making cheese. Thus, it was serendipitous when he saw an ad for assistant cheesemaker at Old Chatham Sheepherding Company shortly upon his return. He recalled that the toughest aspect of securing the job with no experience was trying to convince the owner that he wasn’t simply a hobbyist but truly wanted to learn the craft. Old Chatham brought him on, and one year after joining the company, he was running the creamery. O’Connor knew, however, that eventually he wanted to start his own business. Therefore, he moved on to another position on a goat farm in Dutchess County to gather more knowledge prior to opening a small space in Cohoes in 2008: R & G Cheese.
O’Connor found the space through a fellow farmers’ market vendor, Diane Conroy Lacivita, who was looking to rent some space in her building. R & G (named after O’Connor’s sons Ryan and Gavin) moved into the building, which included complementary food businesses and artist lofts. “We outgrew the space the second we walked in,”
O’Connor recalled. Although he made a great variety of cheeses in that small space, after eight years, he knew it was time to begin searching for a building that could accommodate the growth he had in mind.
It took a year of looking at other spaces prior to settling on the Ross Technology Park in Troy. According to O’Connor, the building was in rough shape, as one would expect from a former 20th-century industrial plant. Upon initial inspection, the place was replete with rubble and even contained its 1930s kitchen equipment “with the original grease,” O’Connor quipped. But O’Connor had a vision, as did Andy Ross, who stepped up to help him rehab the space. Luckily, given the building’s history of housing a cafeteria, the bones were there to make it workable for a cheese production facility. After a year of planning, acquiring permits, and construction, the space was move-in ready in April 2016. Now, three years later, it has proven to be a wise decision.
With the additional space (160 gallons worth of pasteurizing space in 4,000 square feet), R & G has been able to expand production from 20 varieties of cheese to more than 50 in the prime season. And while the space doesn’t have caves for aging, it does contain coolers that mimic cave conditions.
Since launching, R & G has grown tremendously. Their cheeses can now be found up and down the East Coast, in several supermarket chains and Honest Weight Food Co-op. Although the business is doing well, “there’s always that struggle of a small business of how to keep the bank account positive,” O’Connor said. “You don’t grow out of the ups and downs, there’s always the stress.... You can’t get too content because there’s always something that will smack you down, but I wanted my own business and I got it.” Since O’Connor has been in Troy, he has only taken one day off , often working seven days per week, since the cheese needs to made. O’Connor has five to eight employees, depending on the season, but he shares the cheesemaking responsibility with Jason Lippman, his longtime friend from Old Chatham who has been with R & G since the beginning.
Aside from the attention to detail during the cheesemaking process, local milk sourcing is a point of pride for O’Connor and key to setting the cheeses apart in terms of flavor and quality. The small farms with which he works have changed over the years as some have left the business while new ones have cropped up. Typically, O’Connor receives 30 to 200 gallons of milk per delivery, and all but one deliver to him in old-fashioned milk cans. The goat’s milk comes from Secret Star, Bob Griffin in Hoosick, Windy Hill in Oneonta, and Brett and Sandra Bentley in Argyle. Cow’s milk is sourced from two Saratoga farms—Willow Marsh and King Brothers—and the sheep’s milk comes from an Amish co-op that is part of the central New York sheep producers. In the height of summer, R & G will see three farmers per day with the milk used the same day it is delivered.
Of the cheeses R & G produces, the goat cheese is exceptionally popular, albeit not the cheese that incites the most passion in O’Connor, who prefers crafting blues and aged cheeses. Despite his confl icted feelings on the cheese, O’Connor said it is one he should really be “the most proud of since it’s harder to make a simple product outstanding. ... Nothing is hidden.”
Indeed, the plain goat cheese was secretly entered into the World Cheese Championships seven years ago and took 7th in the world, netting a close to perfect score. However, the cheeses have not been in any competitions since; business volume simply does not allow. Especially since a majority of the festivals and competitions occur during the summer, R & G’s prime time. The real contest, O’Connor says, is trying to get 100 wheels of cheese to the Saratoga Race Track in the middle of August as soon as they need them.
R & G cheeses can be found at local supermarkets as well as in restaurants in Lake Placid, the Hudson Valley and Saratoga County, but the best way to get a feel for both the story and flavor of the cheeses is by visiting a farmers’ market. There, one can sample a large array of cheeses and, better yet, learn the genesis of each from either O’Connor himself (if you happen to be in Great Barrington or Williamstown, Massachusetts), Lippman, O’Connor’s mother, wife or son right here in Troy.
Truly, the farmers’ market clientele is the customer base O’Connor would like to focus on going forward. Sheep’s milk cheeses are of particular interest since they are relatively new to R & G and are difficult to wholesale given the expense. These are the type of premium products he would like to make available to a smaller customer base.
He believes that “If we do it well enough, someone can make their own little discovery.”
Old Chatham Sheepherding Company | @oc_sheepherding_creamery
R & G Cheese
Honest Weight Food Co-op | @honestweightfoodcoop
Windy Hill Farm | @windyhillfarminc
Willow Marsh Farm | @willowmarshfarm
King Brothers Dairy | @kingsbrothersdairy
World Cheese Championships
