Cheese Featured on “Top Chef” Highlights a Compeer Client
While Uplands Cheese’s prize Pleasant Ridge Reserve cheese is regularly the toast of the town, one of the co-owners of the dairy farm recently found himself in the spotlight on a popular reality competition show.
Andy Hatch, head cheesemaker and co-owner of Uplands Cheese with Scott Mericka, appeared on Top Chef, Bravo’s Emmy-winning series, in episode 3 of season 21, which aired April 3, 2024. He introduced the elimination challenge theme: “Take It Cheesy.”
“I was really excited when I got the call that they wanted me for the episode,” said Hatch. “We don’t have a large marketing budget to grow on a national scale, but being on Top Chef helped us gain exposure. It’s thrilling to be included not only individually but also to help grow awareness around local artisan cheeses.”
Top Chef producers became aware of Uplands Cheese more than a year ago while they scouted Wisconsin and met with dairy industry leaders to determine what content would be fitting for the upcoming season taking place around Milwaukee. The episode featuring Hatch was intricately designed as Top Chef’s first-ever cheese festival.
“We filmed for two days,” Hatch recalled. “The first day was to create the setup for the cheese cooking competition, and that happened right in the studio, where we also had hair, makeup and wardrobe. Then I introduced the chefs to the challenge and the types of cheeses they would potentially get to work with.”
One of the featured cheeses was Uplands’ Pleasant Ridge Reserve, which is acknowledged as America’s most-awarded cheese. Each “cheftestant” was assigned a cheese to showcase in a dish the following day. Then, they had time to shop for groceries and prep for the challenge while Hatch enjoyed dinner with producers and employees of Top Chef.
The second day was the outdoor cheese festival, which took place west of Milwaukee at a wedding venue. One hundred guests attended, tasted the dishes and voted for their favorite. The top crowd-pleaser won the episode’s competition.
“The show did a great job preparing for the day,” said Hatch. “It was like every other cheese festival I’ve been to where you’re eating unique cheeses and enjoying various drinks, but with cameras all over. It was a really great experience to be a part of.”
At the end of the day’s competition, Pleasant Ridge Reserve received another accolade: it was featured in the winning dish by chef Michelle Wallace, who crafted a potato fritter over collard greens inspired by the classic Indian dish saag paneer.
“Being part of the winning dish was a trip!” Hatch said. “That was like winning the lottery twice – to present on the episode and to have our cheese win in the end. The chef who picked it was really talented and the dish was unconventional. She paired it with Indian spices that I maybe wouldn’t have thought of, and it was delicious.”
Hatch noted that Pleasant Ridge Reserve is a grass-fed, raw milk cheese produced during the short window of May through October when the farm’s cows eat fresh pasture, resulting in a rich, salty flavor with a fruity finish.
“Uplands Cheese is very unique,” said Paul Dietmann, senior lending specialist at Compeer Financial. “The cheese plant is located on an operating dairy farm so visitors can look out at the window and see cows on the pasture that are producing the milk used. Each wheel of Pleasant Ridge Reserve is picked up and washed with a salt brine solution every day for the first few months of storage. The cheese moves through a series of storage rooms with different humidity levels for a year until it’s ready to sell.”
After the Top Chef episode aired, Uplands Cheese saw a surge in orders, much to Hatch’s delight.
“We had to call in a FedEx semi-trailer the following week because all of the orders couldn’t fit in their standard van,” Hatch noted. “Cheese is hugely important to our economy, and exposure like [that provided through] Top Chef is always useful to remind everyone why Wisconsin makes such good cheese.”
Contact a Compeer dairy specialist to learn more about the support we provide to dairy producers and processors in the industry – helping dairy products go from farm to fridge.