Alemar Cheese, an award-winning creamery that’s been positioned on the Food Constructing in Northeast Minneapolis since 2019, has packed up and moved west.

Founder Keith Adams is relocating the corporate to Sebastopol, Calif., a town about 50 miles north of San Francisco where he runs one other creamery that makes aged British-style cheeses.

Adams began Alemar, which makes soft cheeses inspired by French classics like camembert and brie, in Mankato in 2008. He moved back to California, his home state, a couple of decade ago but kept the corporate in Minnesota. The corporate’s move to the Food Constructing in 2019 and hiring of head cheesemaker Charlotte Serino in 2021 raised Alemar’s profile within the Minnesota artisan cheese scene, and their cheeses have taken home several national American Cheese Society prizes lately.

But the corporate hasn’t turned a profit for the reason that pandemic began, Adams said. Serino left earlier this yr when her fiance took a job elsewhere, and Adams struggled to search out one other cheesemaker at her level.

And at concerning the same time, the small family farm that has supplied milk to Alemar for the past six or so years entered right into a contract with a dairy co-op, which provided a more stable marketplace for the farm but meant they might not sell milk to Alemar. Nearly every other organic dairy farm within the state with grass-fed cows, a priority for Adams, also has exclusivity contracts with co-ops, Adams said, so finding a brand new milk supplier was tough. In recent months, Alemar has been pinch-hitting by buying milk from Redhead Creamery, one other respected cheese producer in Brooten, Minn.

With no money, no cheesemaker and no long-term milk source, Adams said, he realized the one way forward was to consolidate operations in California.

“In the long run, it got here right down to two decisions: Close down, which I very much didn’t wish to do because I imagine we’re at the highest of the sport when it comes to making soft-ripened cheese, or move,” Adams said. “I actually didn’t wish to move, however it became apparent that it was that or nothing.”

If the choice feels sudden or abrupt, it was: Adams only made the decision to maneuver the corporate about two weeks ago, he said. He loaded the corporate’s cheese equipment right into a U-Haul truck and commenced driving Tuesday, and he plans to restart production in California as early as next week.

Through his other company, William Cofield Cheesemakers, Adams already has a stable source of organic and grass-fed milk. And the brand new Alemar head cheesemaker? Keith Adams.

“I actually have to confess, there’s definitely some excitement for me being back within the vat making (Alemar) cheeses like Bent River, which I haven’t done for 10 years,” he said.

Alemar was the second cheese company on the Food Constructing; Lone Grazer Creamery operated there from the constructing’s opening in 2015 to 2017. As for the long run of the cheese production space there, Food Constructing founder Kieran Folliard couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Several other marquee spaces on the Food Constructing have modified hands lately: Lowry Hill Provisions, a salami company, replaced Red Table Meats early last yr, and Diane’s Place, a restaurant from renowned pastry chef Diane Moua, opened to fanfare earlier this yr within the space that was once a marketplace cafe called Kieran’s Kitchen.

The constructing can also be home to Baker’s Field Flour & Bread, nonalcoholic beverage company 3LECHE and Folliard’s Red Locks Irish Whiskey.