The owners at Clover Stornetta Farms think they know how a local dairy company can build a national brand: Turn Clo's North Coast milk into cheese.
The Bay Area's largest independent milk processor is staking its future on creating more dairy food products and placing them in new markets. The first effort is a new line of cheeses made solely with milk from Clover's member dairies, nearly all of them linked to the storied grasslands of Sonoma and Marin counties.
“My hope is that we will become as much a cheese company as we are a milk company,” said President/CEO Marcus Benedetti, 37, whose grandfather founded the Petaluma-based Clover.
Benedetti's father, 64-year-old board chairman Dan Benedetti, fondly attributed such a grand goal to “the horizon of young people.” Nonetheless, he suggested that Clover's new products are good enough to compete with cheese giant Kraft and even to take away some market share.
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