It’s hard to imagine the artisan cheese movement of the North Bay without the dynamic duo of Sue Conley and Peggy Smith, two college friends hailing from the Washington, D.C. area who opened the Cowgirl Creamery in 1997 in a renovated barn in Point Reyes Station.
Now, 20 years later, the pioneering Cowgirl Creamery and its marketing sidekick, Tomales Bay Foods — a trifecta of cheese production, distribution and retail — has become a sturdy and reliable link in the California cheese chain, boasting two retail shops, two creameries, a staff of nearly 100 people and a line of award-winning products that includes 10 different types of cheeses made exclusively from the Northern California “milkshed.”
Over time, Cowgirl Creamery came to mean something much larger than making great cheese, however. It was the fire that fueled the entire artisan cheese movement, starting with the food revolution of the Bay Area and ending with the renaissance of the dairy industry along the North Coast.
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