Central Point, OR – Recognized for its innovative and sustainable approach to artisan cheesemaking, Southern Oregon’s Rogue Creamery has been honored with a 2023 Good Food Award for its Smokey Blue Cheese. From nearly 2,000 entries, the smoked blue cheese was selected as a top scorer in both a blind taste test evaluating the quality of the product, as well as an independent assessment of the company’s overall sustainability and social responsibility initiatives conducted annually by the Good Food Foundation. The award was announced at the Foundation’s 13th annual Good Food Awards ceremony in Portland, OR on April 21.
With categories ranging from coffee to oils, pickles to cheese, three food crafters from each region – North, South, East, West and Central – receive a Good Food Award each year. Two of Rogue Creamery’s 2023 submissions, Smokey Blue and Caveman Blue, were named as 2023 finalists, with Smokey Blue ultimately being selected as a winner.
“Our entire team at Rogue Creamery is so proud to win a Good Food Award for Smokey Blue,” commented Plant Manager Immanuel Rodriguez. “This is partly because this competition – more than any other in which we participate each year – reflects our ambitions to use cheese as a force for good.”
Rodriguez continued: “to be recognized by such a respected organization and nominated among a gathering of amazing companies is an immense honor. I hope it inspires other food companies to evaluate their own impact on their community and environment.”
Playfully inspired by Smokey Bear, Smokey Blue is made with certified Organic pasteurized cow’s milk before it is cave-aged and eventually cold-smoked for many hours over Oregon hazelnut shells. This process infuses the cheese with unique aromas of barrel-aged vanilla, bread pudding, and candied bacon, producing spicy-sweet flavors and a mild “blue” finish.
Smokey Blue has been recognized with numerous other awards in the past 15 years; most notably, a prestigious Innovation Award at SIAL Paris in 2006.
Rogue Creamery has long been a leader in dairy sustainability, with numerous programs aimed at encouraging responsible energy consumption and waste management; diversity, equity, and inclusion in its community; and a safe, healthy, positive, and other-centered work environment. Rogue Creamery became Oregon’s first B Corporation in 2014.
“Thank you for both your hard work and your transparency,” said the Good Food Awards Team in an announcement to the company. The Good Food Foundation was founded in 2010 to celebrate, connect, empower and leverage the passionate and engaged players in the food system who are driving towards tasty, authentic and responsible food.
Find more information about the Good Food Foundation at goodfoodfdn.org. To purchase Smokey Blue, Caveman Blue, and Rogue Creamery’s other award-winning, organic cheeses, please visit roguecreamery.com.
About Rogue Creamery:
Rogue Creamery is a USDA certified organic cheese maker located in Central Point, Oregon. For 90 years, Rogue Creamery has drawn from the beauty and flavors of Southern Oregon’s Rogue River Valley to create organic, handcrafted cheeses that have won international acclaim. But creating the world’s best cheese is only part of Rogue’s mission. They know that business – and in their case, cheese – can be used as a force for good. That’s why they became Oregon’s first public benefit corporation, “B Corp” for short, joining a global movement of companies that are committed to making the world a better place. Rogue Creamery is committed to making a difference socially, economically, and environmentally. Learn more at roguecreamery.com.
About The Good Food Foundation: The Good Food Foundation exists to celebrate, connect, empower and leverage the passionate and engaged, yet often overlooked, players in the food system who are driving towards tasty, authentic and responsible food in order to humanize and reform our American food culture. Through five key programs – Awards, Guild, Alliance, Mercantile and Fund– we build widespread support for the growers, ranchers, makers and merchants stubbornly swimming upstream to create and share the kind of food we all want to eat: tasty, authentic and responsible.
