Devotion to Dairy
Ballerino Creamery’s owner Louella Hill has long loved food. Born in a mining town on the U.S. / Mexico border, she grew up eating raw milk queso fresco from “across the line”. Later, in college, she made her way to a sheep farm in Tuscany. There she first witnessed the transformation of fresh milk into fragrant wheels. It was a point of no return.
Since then, Louella has worked on dairy farms and in cheese factories in the U.S. and abroad. She has taught many cheesemaking classes, co-founded what was once Rhode Island’s only creamery and published a book on home cheesemaking (Kitchen Creamery, Chronicle Books). Several years after arriving in Staunton, a friend led Louella to a building that was once a thriving creamery (known as Augusta Dairies). Though the building had not been used for milk processing for half a century, that was to change as the building would soon house Ballerino Creamery. To add frosting to the cake, the stream running alongside the building is called Buttermilk Creek.
Community Through Food
Be in touch if you have a question about our cheeses. As a small business, we care not only about the cheeses we make but about the community we serve. We thank you for supporting our business.