# Ranch and Cheese Business in Utah



## Happy Utahn (May 19, 2007)

After ten years and many improvements, we're selling our ranch and cheese business.

We make artisan cheese in beautiful Southern Utah. We live on 20 acres with fabulous views. We're not off-grid, but we use solar panels, solar hot water heating, and a wood-fired boiler to reduce our dependence on purchased energy. Our nearest neighbor is a half mile away. 

If this sounds like paradise, please keep reading!

We have a 3-bed, 2 bath brick home. We redid the kitchen a couple of years ago with lots of cabinets, oak floor, and granite counter tops. There's new carpet in the bedrooms. The brick helps keep it warm in the winter and cool in the summer. We have our own well, so there's no water bill. We use propane as a heat source, but we mostly heat the home with a wood stove.

We're located on 20 fully-fenced acres on a valley floor. There are mountain views about 270 degrees around. We're only 2 miles off the I-15 freeway, and 4 miles from the nearest town, but our nearest neighbor is a half mile away, so it's secluded without being isolated. We're about 20 miles north of Cedar City, Utah, and about 3 hours from Las Vegas.

We have a barn that's about 1600 sf, which includes a workshop, an open area, a hay loft, a storage room, and three stalls. There are also 2 - 40' storage containers for hay or extra belongings. We have a 1954 Ford 8N tractor with lots of attachments (mower, rototiller, post-hole digger, blade, and more). We also have a 1970-era OMC 1200 bobcat with both bucket and forks.

We started a cheese business 8 years ago, and now have a facility that's about 1600 sf. We use a 150-gallon vat/pasteurizer for making cheese. We also have a 600-gallon refrigerated bulk tank for milk, and a 600-gallon (non-refrigerated) milk trailer. We'll even throw in the 1995 Ford F-350 Powerstroke (low mileage) we use to haul the trailer. We had a custom drain table and lever-presses fabricated. There are cheese knives, a variety of cheese molds, and all the equipment needed to make cheese. We just bought a brand-new packaging machine that we haven't even used yet. And there's a variety of refrigeration for the finished cheese, as well as a walk-in freezer.

The wash room includes a three-compartment stainless sink, a hand sink, and a cook stove. At one point, we were using it as a commercial kitchen.

There's also a brand-new cheese cave. It's a reinforced concrete underground structure with two rooms (one for raw cheese and one for pasteurized cheese), both with HEPA-filtered ventilation and humidity control. The smaller room is 8 x 8, the larger room is 8 x 23, and there are two consecutive access doors to help keep out contamination.

We sold our livestock last year, but we still have all the milking equipment, including two milking tables, a 7.5-gallon milking pail, a 3/4 HP vacuum pump, and the attachments to milk two goats at a time. This could be converted to milk cows instead.

We are an established local brand, selling at farmers markets, events, and a few stores. Until two years ago, we were increasing our sales by 25% per year. Then my wife got sick. Since then, I've been running the business by myself, which has reduced the amount of cheese we can make and sell. Still, we turned a profit last year.

Now, with a new baby and my wife's health issues, it's time for us to move closer to town and do something else. We'd love to see the cheese business continue, and would be happy to train whoever buys it. That includes techniques, recipes, and contacts. We want you to succeed!

It's listed at $349,000. Property taxes are about $850 per year.

If you're from back east, you should also know that there are no mosquitoes or black flies here!

If this sounds interesting, please contact me at [email protected].


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