We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Joshua and Meghan Hall Gary and Rachel Smith. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Joshua and Meghan Hall below.
Hi Joshua and Meghan Hall, thank you so much for agreeing to open up about a sensitive and personal topic like being fired or laid-off. Unfortunately, there has been a rise in layoffs recently and so your insight and experience with overcoming being let go is relevant to so many in the community.
In the summer of 2020, and fed up with the pandemic lockdown, my good friend, Rachel Smith, and I met up for a Covid-friendly, outdoor, stand-up paddle board yoga class. After, Rachel asked me if we should get together and start hashing out the details of starting our own business. My husband, Josh, and I had a dream of owning our own cheese shop and it was Rachel who first said the words to me that made me think it might be possible.
Josh and Rachel’s husband, Gary, had been working for Michigan State University, for the Dairy Plant under the College of Food Science and Human Nutrition. Josh, as the head of cheesemaking, and Gary, as the Food Safety officer, and other roles requiring his recent Master of Food Science degree. Aside from providing hands-on lab experience, the MSU Dairy Plant is known for producing ice cream and cheese. MSU was the first land grant university in the U.S. and as such has a strong presence in teaching and integrating agricultural practices. In Josh’s case, producing cheese from the on-campus dairy herd. The Dairy Store is a beloved part of campus life. When I was a student you could get a grilled cheese sandwich for $2! And they used real sugar and a low overrun (less air is churned into the mix, making a creamier texture) for THE BEST ice cream! Because of the Store’s success it was a self-sustaining business that happens to be on a college campus. But as with so many other small businesses, when people were supposed to be at home, or asked not to be out on campus, the Dairy Store had to close, leaving Josh, Gary and the 3 other plant workers and managers without a source for income.
Eventually Josh and the rest of the Plant crew formulated a plan to put ice cream sales on their website and became highly-paid ice cream dippers. They’d get an online order, scoop it into cups and run it out to cars for curbside pickup. For perspective: the Dairy Store has historically been run by student employees working minimum wage, on a flexible schedule, between classes. Because the Plant employees were working for the University they still were earning their contracted salaries. Until the College, who was paying them became involved.
The College department heads started putting more pressure on the Dairy Plant employees to produce income for their salaries, while still having campus restrictions. We began to realize this career he had may be losing its stability, which we never thought could happen at this established university. We bought our first home only 2 years before, after entertaining other job offers and opting for this career and Lansing to be our home. Watching Josh work long hours doing student labor, while simultaneously advocating for keeping not only his but also his co-workers and manager’s jobs showed me the grit he has. He’s not someone who gives up easily and is willing to work hard to support his family. It was during those long days that Josh and Gary started to talk about other options.
Our two families ordered pizza and met in our backyard: A pandemic project of re-staining our deck, painting the exterior of our house and putting up cafe lights made for an outdoor meeting spot. Josh and Gary laid out how they had learned that Leelanau Cheese, near Traverse City, 3 hours north, was up for sale. The original owners, a husband and wife, had started the company in 1995 and after 25 years of hard work and some national and world-renowned accolades they were ready to retire. I remember our 2 boys and their two girls, all under age 5, playing around us, as we each went around the table committing to go “all in” on becoming business owners. The next week Josh and Gary called up John and Anne Hoyt at Leelanau Cheese and asked if they wanted to talk about selling their business to us. Later, Anne told us that she hung up the phone, turned to John and said, “that was the phone call I’ve been waiting for.”
So many things happened after that launching us forward into being business owners. The week Josh and Gary drove “Up North” to meet with the Hoyts was the same week that Josh was put on furlough with MSU and Gary was laid off. But, because of our forward thinking we were already on a track that made losing those jobs almost inconsequential. From there many other coincidences or maybe miracles happened. I was the full time-stay at home parent, picking up clerical work for the shipping company I’d worked for post-graduation, during babies’ nap times. When Josh was furloughed I was able to slip right back into my role booking freight shipments full time. Josh could be with the kids, get our oldest logged into online preschool, and dedicate time to hashing out a business plan with Gary.
After many, many weeks of Zoom meetings, making connections with the small business association in Northern Michigan and revising that business plan and having friends offer to buy the business as investors, we were put in touch with other small business owners in Leelanau County who put together the perfect group of investors that would allow us to purchase not only the business, but also the property. Both the Smiths and we were able to sell our houses within days of listing, the week of Christmas, making profits on our shortly-owned homes. This enabled us to make our own investments in the business and allowed Josh and Gary to become the Owner-Operators. This gave us control over the daily operations and secured this business as one that makes artisan cheese, as the Hoyts did, but also be in a position to evolve it, and now includes food service, online sales, fun and educational cheesemaking workshops, with still more room for ideas and expansion. Josh and Gary have worked so hard and have managed to pick up several of their own cheesemaking awards from the American Cheese Society and most recently a Super Gold from the World Cheese Awards.
Just as we sat around the table on our back deck, Josh, Gary, Rachel and I still work as a team as we navigate the highs and lows of running our own business without any background in business. We collaborate on ideas and are flexible as challenges come our way.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
For more than 25 years Leelanau Cheese Company has been using traditional Swiss methods to produce a distinctive, nutty Raclette cheese, and a spreadable, French-style Fromage Blanc. These artisan cheeses are handmade in Leelanau County, MI, using single source, local cow milk, pasteurized on site. The cheesemakers have been recognized for crafting a wash rind raclette, receiving multiple accolades including Super Gold at the World Cheese Awards.
“Racler,” the French word meaning, “to scrape,” hints at the European tradition for serving this Alpine-style cheese. Raclette is commonly melted under a grill and then scraped over boiled new potatoes, served with a side of sour cornichons. Try it melted on eggs, veggies, in grilled sandwiches, on burgers or steaks. This cheese is aged in a subterranean cheese cellar long enough that it also is great sliced and eaten at room temperature with crackers and charcuterie. Pairing suggestions: dried fruit, nuts, and Riesling.
Fromage Blanc is a fresh, lactic, soft cheese, similar to whipped cream cheese. Flavors are mixed in, like savory garlic and earthy black truffle, to appeal to any craving. Eat as a snack with crackers, with sweet jam, on bagels, or try in recipes with cream cheese.
We Ship! Order online at www.leelanaucheese.com. We ship on Mondays and Tuesdays to ensure your cheese won’t be held over the weekend.
We serendipitously acquired Leelanau Cheese company on June 4, 2021, which is National Cheese Day! To celebrate, we hosted a cheese festival for the last two years on this date. We celebrate ALL Michigan-made cheeses using the high quality milk also produced by cows (and goats and sheep!) grazing in Michigan. The 3rd Annual Cheese Fest is on Saturday June 8, 2024. We will have cheese tastings and pairings with local business owners and producers of wine, cider and chocolate, a mozzarella cheese making workshop, crafts, petting zoo, face painting and STEM activities for kids, a farmer’s market, food trucks, cheese cave tours, and end the day with “Meet-the-Cheesemaker,” a casual meet and greet event where you can mingle with local cheesemakers. This year we’ll be featuring the traditional melted raclette over potato dish and hear about this dish’s origins from French native and Alpine-educated original Leelanau Cheese owner Anne Hoyt.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
From Josh: The three qualities that have been most helpful for me in my journey are:
1. Trusting in my capacity to learn new things. This is my first time pursuing my own business endeavor. After about 15 years in working for the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at Michigan State University I’m competent in dairy processing procedures, food safety and product development, but being a business owner requires a different set of skills that I am learning as I go. Things like accounting and marketing, finding vendors for our products, hiring or firing employees, property management, these are all new skills I’ve had to acquire in a short amount of time, and all at once. I’m willing to take on new challenges and learn from them.
2. The ability to make meaningful connections with people has been essential. Gary and I were fortunate to have the right group of people who were as enthusiastic about our vision for the future of Leelanau Cheese rally around us and invest in two guys who wanted to start their own business. Bringing in my own experiences has allowed for collaboration with new people in a new part of Michigan.
3. The ability to convey vision and purpose of our business goals. Working with a group of investors, it has been essential to lay out what we have accomplished, how we have fulfilled the original goals we made in our business plan and what is next for us.
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
From Josh: Finding momentum can be difficult. I have found that taking the smallest possible steps, one at a time will point me in the right direction until I am making advances is the best way to overcome feeling overwhelmed. Accomplishing one tiny goal at a time builds momentum and makes overwhelming feelings seem smaller and easier to handle.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.leelanaucheese.com/
- Instagram: @leelanaucheese https://www.instagram.com/leelanaucheese/
- Facebook: Leelanau Cheese https://www.facebook.com/LeelanauCheese
