Caputo Brothers Creamery, LLC, Spring Grove

What services does your business offer and what makes your business stand out from the competition?

We produce the country’s only fermented cheese curds that can be stretched into fresh mozzarella-style cheeses. We make our cheeses using traditional Italian recipes learned from years of working with Master Cheesemakers throughout southern Italy. All of our cheeses are made with milk purchased from local family farms that observe strict animal welfare practices while focusing on grass and non-gmo feeds.

What was the inspiration to start or run this business?

My husband and I quit our jobs and moved to Italy to go to culinary school. While we were there we fell in love with the mozzarella-style cheeses of southern Italy and worked with several cheesemakers to learn how to make the cheeses ourselves. Once we returned to the US we realized the mozzarella we loved so much in Italy just didn’t taste the same here, so we started making it at home like we had learned in Italy. When people started going crazy for it, we moved to Pennsylvania and started making cheese!

What do you love most about your job?

The best part of the job is when I explain to someone the difference between our cheeses and all of the rest. Most people are polite and listen, but when you hand them a ball of fresh mozzarella, still warm from stretching, then they truly understand the difference and their reaction is priceless. It makes the long days of cheesemaking all worth while.

What is the best reaction you've ever gotten from a customer?

The best reaction from a customer is always when they say something like “this is the best cheese I have ever eaten”, or “your cheese is even better than the cheese I had in Italy!"