Our Story

Cypress Grove Chevre is one of America's best known artisan goat cheese companies and makers of the iconic "Humboldt Fog."

The seeds of Cypress Grove Chevre were sown in the 1970s when Mary Keehn, a single mother of four daughters living in Humboldt County, began looking for a healthy source of milk for her family. As luck would have it, a neighbor had two goats. When asked by Mary if she was interested in selling them, she told her, "Honey, if you can catch them, you can have them."

Armed only with her resolve and a coffee can full of oats, Mary captured not only the two does and her healthy source of milk, but also a career and a unique place in American food history.

Possessing a background in biology, Mary's interest turned to breeding her goats. Within a few years, the size of the herd had increased significantly and she found herself with excess goat milk. She started experimenting with cheese making in her kitchen, and in 1983, with a regular customer base already developing, she officially founded Cypress Grove Chevre.

At the time, commercial goat cheese production was virtually unheard of in the US. Mary, along with a handful of other goat cheese makers, began to spearhead the movement.

From the outset, Mary strove to make the highest quality, best-tasting artisanal cheeses. Market acceptance, however, was slow. Americans, it seemed, had become accustomed not only to the strong, tangy goat cheeses made in France, but also bland, sliced "cheese" wrapped in plastic. It took quite a few years before consumers developed a palate for the smooth, delicate flavors of Cypress Grove cheeses. Mary used this period of slow, steady growth to take special care of her customers and to work in conjunction with other goat cheese pioneers to develop the American market. Patience, hard work and a commitment to quality paid off and over time a large, loyal following began to seek out the Cypress Grove label. Today, renowned for its innovative range of fresh, aged, and ripened cheeses, many invented by Mary, Cypress Grove is a leader in the domestic goat cheese market and has been internationally awarded for the excellence of its products.

As Cypress Grove grew, the challenges of managing the goats in addition to making cheese became overwhelming, so Mary made the decision to sell the goats to a number of local farms and put an arrangement in place to buy milk from them. This allowed her to focus on cheese making and to take the company forward. To this day, each dairy operates under an incentive program that ensures that Cypress Grove consistently receives exceptional quality milk from our dairy partners.

As the company continued to expand, Mary was approached with many acquisition offers. None of these offers seemed to be a good fit until August of 2010, when she received a proposal from Emmi, a Swiss company which is majority-owned by a cooperative of small farmers and dairy operators. As part of the terms of the acquisition, Emmi agreed to keep the company's employees and headquarters in Humboldt County as well as maintaining Cypress Grove's long-standing commitments with the community, environment and milk suppliers.