Cowgirl Creamery, a small food producer in Marin County, Calif., was elated when Whole Foods came calling to buy Cowgirl’s organic triple-cream cheese for 45 of its stores. After five years of selling shop to shop, the entrepreneurs behind the company finally had their first big order. To meet the new production demands, they borrowed $200,000 to build new aging rooms for the cheese.
But the first batch they delivered to Whole Foods grew mold. Not the white, fluffy mold that gives cheese its essence — it was the nonedible, possibly reputation-destroying black mold.
“It was awful,” said Sue Conley, who started the company with her partner, Peggy Smith. “We hadn’t primed our new aging rooms, so other bacteria were competing with the fluffy white mold. It was a big mess.”
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