MouCo Cheese Company was incorporated in July of 2000, and since then, we've been churning out wheels of cheese as fast as the Front Range can gobble them up. But to really understand our company history, we have to take you back a little further in time. It starts, like so many good stories start, as a love story.
Birgit Halbreiter grew up in Memmingen, Germany, a small town in Bavaria where she trained and worked for one of the world's largest soft-ripened cheese manufacturers, Käserei Champignon. After leaving Germany, Birgit eventually came to work through Molson Breweries, as QA Manager and member of the board of directors for New Belgium Brewing Company, one of the nation's fastest-growing brewing companies. Here, Birgit met Robert Poland, who was working as New Belgium's fermentation manager.
Soon, the pair began home cheese-making with the help of Birgit's father, Franz Halbreiter, a master cheese-maker living in Germany. Currently, Franz acts as a consultant for MouCo cheese and used to spend about one month per year in Fort Collins, working with Robert on quality, sanitation, and product development.
After spending some time home cheese-making, it was obvious to Birgit and Robert that they had the quality and consistency for a premium brand line of cheese. They opened MouCo's artisan cheesery in 2001 and made their first sale shortly afterward to Beaver's Market in Fort Collins.
For the first nine years, Birgit and Robert focused on the quality production of MouCo Camembert, a buttery traditional-style soft-ripened cheese. Over the last several years, MouCo has introduced four additional varieties of cheese, all with their own distinctive flavor profiles.
