Clock Shadow Creamery is a pioneering urban cheese factory committed to being a model local venture. Our goal is to produce and provide our customers with amazingly fresh, local cheese. Our mission is simple; our cheese factory will tread softly on the local environment, provide opportunities to learn the craft of cheese making, educate the public on the nutrient value of fresh dairy products, and connect local farmers choices, with the values of our customers.
Opening in April of 2012, Clock Shadow Creamery is located on the ground floor of the newest “green” Fix building in the Walker’s Point Neighborhood. While it is the first urban cheese factory in Wisconsin, our cheese makers are certainly aged – with wisdom. Clock Shadow Creamery was created by the founders of Cedar Grove Cheese, one of Wisconsin’s oldest cheese producers. Cedar Grove Cheese introduced a small scale cheese laboratory several years ago in Plain, WI to accommodate the desire of small farmers and itinerant cheese makers to produce and market small batches of specialty artisan cheese varieties.
Clock Shadow Creamery founder, Bob Wills, grew up in the Milwaukee area. In fact, his first home was on Oklahoma Avenue, just about a mile south of the creamery. Bob learned to appreciate the ethnic diversity of his city and its many festivals and events. His youthful involvement included helping organize the Milwaukee Hunger Hikes and Earth Day cleanups of the rivers. After leaving the area for years that included stints in Washington DC and Chicago, Bob returned to Wisconsin, married the cheese maker’s daughter, took over the Cedar Grove Cheese business and achieved his goal of being a Wisconsin stereotype. Living and raising children in Plain, a town of about 700, has its great advantages, but the opportunity to bring his chosen craft to the cheese desert of Milwaukee was irresistible.
Juli Kaufmann had the idea to develop a polluted, brown field site a block from her home into a green building serving the local community. The building includes a geothermal heating and cooling system, a rooftop garden, rainwater reuse system, a power generating elevator and many other ecological innovations. The building itself contains over one half reused materials and was built by CG Schmidt with practically no waste. She attracted upstairs tenants dedicated to the emotional and physical wellbeing of community members. Initially she envisioned a restaurant to anchor the ground floor of the building. In a meeting with the Dairy Business Innovation Center that included Bob Wills, she broached the idea of having a cheese factory. Just a few blocks north of the world famous Allen-Bradley (Rockwell) clock tower, Clock Shadow Creamery – perhaps Milwaukee’s first cheese factory – was born.
