Lake Erie Creamery
Cherry Lane Farms
Lake Erie Creamery
Lake Erie Creamery is a small urban creamery in the city of Cleveland specializing in making artisan goat's milk cheese. Begun by husband and wife Jerry Onken and Mariann Janosko in 2006, the creamery occupies a corner of a redeveloped, multi-use building.
Mariann makes all our cheeses by hand. She begins by gently pasteurizing each 50-gallon batch to preserve the milk's quality and character. Then she adds cultures to the milk and starts it on its way to becoming cheese.
While some of the cheese is aging, Jerry sells and delivers the fresh chèvre. Until now, Jerry has sold all our cheese locally — to chefs committed to using fresh and local ingredients, at farmers' markets and at small, retail outlets that care for our cheeses the way we would.
Lake Erie Creamery also conserves resources by closing the loop in the farm-to-city cycle by sending cheese making byproducts back to the farm. Our whey travels to the farm to feed Hampshire hogs and pastured poultry, that then appear on menus at some of Cleveland best restaurants.
Each week, Jerry hauls milk in 10-gallon stainless steel cans from Cherry Lane Farm, a family operation in Portage County, Ohio.
Teddy, our farmer, milks about 120 of her 400 registered Saanen goats twice a day to produce the high quality milk that lets us make great cheese year round.
“We have always wanted to be farmers. As artisan cheese makers, we feel that we are at last a part of the farming community - the link between the gifts of the land and the joys of the table.”
