OUR STORY

Back in 1988, founder Jim Schott and his wife bought five goats (four does and a buck) and cultivated a modest 6-acre farmstead in Niwot, Colorado. Haystack Mountain lay in view just to the north, and after he’d made his first delicious chèvre, Jim couldn’t think of a better emblem for what he set out to build.

Jim incorporated the company in 1989 and started selling his homemade chèvre to restaurants and farmers markets in and around Boulder County. Haystack Mountain goat cheeses first appeared in Alfalfa’s markets in 1992, and Haystack won its first award the same year. In the mid-nineties Haystack cheeses came to the table in white-tablecloth restaurants. No doubt, Jim’s humble, hand-wrought cheeses were finding appeal with a wider range of tastes.

The new millennium ushered in more and more orders for Haystack’s expanding menu of cheeses. We fashioned our first raw milk cheese in 2002. Two years later, Haystack opened its creamery in Longmont, and in 2005, our products started appearing in some of the nation’s finest cheese cases. By 2007, we’d expanded our creamery to keep up with demand. Since the mid-2000’s we have focused on supply chain stability and being able to create some of the best cheese in the world. As we approach the end of 2021, we celebrate our history with a renewed vision for what we will create in the near future. Stay tuned and reach out for more information.