Nearly 30 years ago, a handful of enterprising Vermonters realized they could do more with milk than just sell it. And with a little help from the state, they became pioneers in what quickly blossomed into the now behemoth artisanal cheese movement.
Now Vermont officials are exploring a new round of value added agriculture. Because why just raise livestock when instead you could be tapping into the burgeoning world of charcuterie?
"You can buy a pig for $3 a pound. You turn it into cuts and you'll get $4, $5, $6 a pound. Turn it into bacon and you're getting $8, maybe $9 a pound. Turn it into cured products, the world's your oyster," said Robin Morris, founder of the Mad River Food Hub, an incubator for new food businesses that is adding rooms to help producers dry cure meats such as salamis, prosciuttos and sopressatas.
It's actually a pretty simple equation. Produce an agricultural commodity and sell it as a commodity and you get paid commodity prices. It's a formula that requires high volume to be successful, by definition difficult for the sorts of small farmers that populate Vermont. But turn those commodities into sought-after artisanal food products and the game changes.
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