Back Forty Artisan Cheese

Craig Bakay | Jul 05, 2017

Making a living from June to September in this area is a relatively simple matter. However, the rest of the year is often quite problematic, as many a failed business owner has found out.

But Jeff and Jenna Fenwick may have found a wrinkle that others have missed.

You see, the owners of Back Forty Artisan Cheese on Gully Road in Mississippi Station have gone about things in a slightly different manner. Instead of immediately taking advantage of the readily available clientele summer in the Frontenacs provides, they got their main business — providing artisan cheese to restaurants and tea rooms — up and thriving before getting into the summer cottage and tourism market.

Last Saturday, they opened their shop and patio for the season, the second year they’ve done so.

“The shop is a bonus,” Jenna, who’s also operated a textile business for 10 years, said during the busy opening day. “We weren’t sure anyone would come but we’re very pleased with the turnout and the community support we’ve received.”

In 2011, the Fenwicks bought an existing sheep cheese business in Lanark township and Jeff worked with the owners to learn the business.

“It was an opportunity,” Jeff said. “I probably wouldn’t have been able to do it on my own because it’s difficult to get started.”

A couple of years ago, they found their farm, made all the necessary arrangements and renovations and moved everything to the banks of the Mississippi River.

“This land provides all of our food and we’ve started shaping fields to one day raise our own sheep for milk,” Jenna said. (They currently have arrangements with some family farms for their milk to make cheese.)

“But there’s no rush on that,” Jeff said.

They’d also like to expand the patio and its menu, get a liquor licence and maybe even build some cabins to rent out.

But, again, no rush.

“I do like food,” Jeff said. “So yes, we think about a cafe, a bar, whatever.

“For now, we’re just trying to make good cheese and we have a good spot for that. We do have about 300 restaurants we have to take care of.”

Jenna said that “on some level, we’ve always dreamed about having a restaurant, even back when we lived in Hamilton.”

Jeff does like to take things cautiously, for example while he’s considered expanding to cow or goat milk cheese, the certification process alone presents its own hurdles.

But in the case of having the shop open on Saturdays in the summer, that’s a slightly different matter.

“If you’re back here making cheese, it’s kind of reclusive,” he said. “I like people and I like to talk to people.

“I’d like to make money (with the shop and patio), but it’s not about that.”