BREEDER PROFILES
Continuous Innovation Leads to Success
T
he world of commerce operates very current U.S. record holder for women’s byproduct of cheesemaking. differently today than it did even a discus, to workaday Americans looking for “When we started out, we were making decade ago. To be successful, businesses a tasty way to get their daily allotment of cheese from 55-60 cows and feeding whey need to continually innovate, keep a protein. to heifers and steers,” Amy noted. “That pulse on consumer needs and operate worked well for us initially and made in an environment of accountability. Curds and Whey for some really tasty Jersey beef for our Opportunities abound for those with a spirit M a r c o o t J e r s ey C r e a m e r y wa s customers.” of entrepreneurship, including those in the established 10 years ago as a means of But, with plans to double the milking dairy industry. bringing Amy and her sister, Beth, into string by 2017 and incorporate a pair of After developing a strong market for the Jersey dairy operated by their parents, robotic milkers, the Marcoots knew they cheese, Marcoot Jersey Creamery would have to make changes, so began of Greenville, Ill., has broadened researching how other cheesemakers its product line with a fresh whey used their whey. product, Extreme Ice. The tasty “We found that large cheeseblend of whey and frozen fruit is makers are financially able to recoup the go-to for post-training recovery costs to dehydrate whey and sell it by some of the world’s most elite as powder,” noted Amy. “Smaller athletes. Extreme Ice has also cheesemakers in densely populated helped the creamery reach its goal or creamery-dense areas, like Wisof utilizing every drop of valuable consin, have a ready market for their milk made by its herd of Registered whey.” Jersey cows. “Since neither of those applied C r e a m e r y p r e s i d e n t A my to us, we needed to create something Marcoot and her team capitalized on we could market ourselves, so began their relationship with major league John and Linda Marcoot, center, and their daughters, Amy, to experiment,” continued Amy. baseball teams in St. Louis, Mo., left, and Beth, operate Marcoot Jersey Creamery, an All-Jer- “Our first version of the product was and Arlington, Texas, to develop sey distributor, in Greenville, Ill. a healthy Italian ice of sorts that we Extreme Ice, an idea they had begun called Whey Ice. It was a mix of fresh tinkering with about four years ago. They John and Linda. The Marcoots started with whey and shaved frozen fruit in an 8 oz. worked with team chefs and nutritionists cheese, developing markets locally and container.” to fine-tune their prototype and became then across the Midwest. Their product “I brought it with me to one of my regular certified through the National Science line ranges from fresh cheese like curds meetings with the chef for the baseball team Federation last fall, a move that earns and Mozzarella to cave-aged Tomme and in St. Louis to get his take on it.” credibility in the lucrative sports world. Gouda. The creamery is an All-Jersey “He thought it could be very valuable to Extreme Ice is also finding fans outside producer and markets products using the the players if it had more protein and was major league baseball, from Olympic-level Queen of Quality label. Extreme Ice was especially excited about the cold, frozen athletes like Gia Lewis-Smallwood, the developed to better utilize fresh whey, a feature. Another request was to make the
