East Hill Creamery
By David Durrett – a current intern at GreenStar Food Co+op, David Durrett is a lifelong resident of Ithaca as well as a graduate of Ithaca College. He is a freelance reporter whose work has also appeared in Tompkins Weekly and The Ithaca Voice, among other publications.
East Hill Creamery, owned by Gary and Betty Burley, creates artisan Alpine-style cheese, reminiscent of Europe’s gourmet variety, made from the raw milk of their pasture-raised cows. In 1981, the Burleys started with just 100 acres of land in Perry, NY and eighteen cows, but more than 30 years later, East Hill Creamery boasts ten times the acreage and about 1,300 cows.
When Gary and Betty’s adult children returned home in 2016 and expressed an interest in helping at the dairy, the family initiated its venture into cheesemaking.
While Gary takes pride in East Hill Creamery’s cheese, he concedes that it can be difficult to win over new customers given the amount of competition from other cheese makers, who often advertise their product online.
“People are pretty inside the box,” Gary said. “They really don’t look for something different.”
GreenStar Food Co+op proudly offers four of the nine varieties from East Hill Creamery: Happy Accident, Silver Lake, Underpass, and Underpass Reserve. East Hill Creamery has been selling to GreenStar for two years and Gary appreciates that the Co-op is a discerning customer with high standards for quality for the products they sell.
“They’re looking for something a little higher end as far as the flavor of the cheese, their palate is more refined, and they’re concerned about where it comes from – local, which is great,” Gary said.
Gary also appreciates the cooperative business model. “They care about what they’re doing, and what they’re doing is helpful to customers,” Gary said. “I think it’s a good way to get the people involved in their food chain.”
Gary looks forward to expanding his market share by producing more cheese. His production plant is large and has significant capacity.
“We’re just getting started, so we’re not very developed,” Gary said. “We don’t have a lot of automated systems in place. As you grow a business, you get better at it. We’re just a young company, there’s so much to learn.”
The COVID-19 pandemic presented a challenge to East Hill Creamery, like with many other food producers. Many restaurants closed in an attempt to curtail the spread of the virus, and grocery stores cut back on how much cheese they ordered, reducing sales.
“COVID didn’t help for sure,” Gary said. “It didn’t help anybody. So in order to keep your doors open, you had to redirect your market, you had to figure out what was going to work.”
Gary wants people to try his cheese and enjoys sharing his story with customers. Gary believes that people who taste East Hill Creamery cheese will come to appreciate the quality and keep coming back for more.
“We try to win over people that are eating commodity cheese,” Gary said. “What more is there in life? You can only buy so many things; if you can eat good food and really enjoy it, have a good experience, why not?”