Founder's Circle
My cholesterol has been through the roof since I was a teenager. I inherited it from my dad.
I didn't want to be on medication starting that young, so I've always been careful about what I eat. For a long time, I thought I was on a good track.
Then my doctor sat me down for a heart-to-heart.
Around the same time, I was reading Dr. Greger's book about the link between dairy and cancer. I'd already watched cancer take people I love. I couldn't read those pages and look away.
Those two things together forced me to give up one of my all-time favorite foods. Cheese.
Cheese was everything to me. It was the food I reached for when I needed comfort. It was the thing I put out when friends came over. It was the centerpiece of dinner parties, the small luxury of a Saturday night with a glass of wine and a baguette. I'd planned weekends around cheese boards. The thought of a life without it felt like losing something I couldn't name.
I tried to negotiate with myself. Maybe a little less. Maybe only on weekends. Maybe only the good stuff.
Eventually, I gave it up.
The first months were hard. I'd reach into the fridge out of habit and stop halfway. I tried every plant-based cheese on the market. They had their place, but none of them gave me back what I'd lost. Cultured, aged, the kind of cheese you put on a board. I started to accept that cheese was something I'd have to grieve.
A few months in, I went back for more bloodwork. My numbers had come down. Lower than they'd been in years. After everything I'd done over the years to manage it, dairy was the thing.
I was relieved. And I was gutted.
That feeling never left me. It became the reason Fred and I eventually started Rebel Cheese. I wasn't trying to start a food company. I was trying to get cheese back. Real cheese. Cultured, aged, handled with care.
I still remember the first cheese board we set out for friends with our own cheeses. Crackers, grapes, wine, the works. I watched everyone reach in and keep reaching. Nobody asked what was different. They just ate. And it hit me that I was hosting again. I hadn't been able to do that in a long time.
That's why the letters from our customers get to me. Every single one.
A man with Alpha Gal syndrome who hadn't touched cheese in years. A woman who hadn't eaten it for over a decade after a stroke. A grandmother whose doctor put her on a strict no-dairy plan after a kidney diagnosis. They write to tell us they thought that part of their life was over. That they'd stopped hosting. Stopped contributing to the cheese board at family dinners. Stopped reaching for the thing that used to feel like home.
One of them used the word "rescued." That word stops me every time. Because I was that person, and I know exactly what she meant.
For many of our customers, cheese was taken from them too. And like me, they went searching for something they could put on a cheese board, pair with wine, build a date night around.
That's why we make our cheeses the way we do. Hand-tended every single day, holidays included. The highest quality ingredients we can find. It's also why we don't make slices, spreads, or shreds. There are plenty of those on the market and they fill their own niche of everyday use.
If your doctor, your body, or your conscience took cheese off your plate, this letter is for you.
Cheese was taken from me, too. I got it back.
Here's to getting it back,
Co-founder, Rebel Cheese
P.S. Mother's Day boxes ship out this week. If your mom is someone who'd light up over a real cheese board, get your order in by Tuesday at midnight CST.
Me and Fred at one of our first tasting events.
