Du Jour: The Ryals family, Ryals Goat Dairy

Ryals Goat Dairy’s feta, chevre, goat ribs, fresh eggs and more attract a stream of fans to its booths at the Red Stick and Crescent City Farmers Markets every week—items which are also sold directly to two New Orleans top chefs, John Besh and Donald Link. These carefully-produced foods represent a longtime family farm in Tylertown, Ms. reinventing itself in the midst of the farm-to-table movement. Blake Ryals says his foray into cheese-production happened when he decided dairy goats could round out a business formerly focused on dairy cows and meat goats. “We were trying to be diversified and we got to thinking if we had dairy goats it would fit right into our operation,” he recalls. The Ryalses found a market with Chef John Folse, who used their goat milk in his cheese production at Bittersweet Plantation Dairy. Then, they thought they’d try cheesemaking themselves. “With the farmers markets, we figured we’d have a place to sell it,” says Ryals.

Milking goats is serious business, since once the animals start producing, they must be milked twice a day, every day, says Ryals. However, crafting cheese make from an onsite herd’s milk enables the Ryals to call their cheeses farmstead, which surpasses artisan cheese in its breadth of craftsmanship. Next, the dairy plans is to start bringing chocolate milk, produced from their cows, to the Thursday market in Baton Rouge, says Ryals. The team is also working closely with Chef Link to breed a line of Berkshire pigs exclusively for Link’s pork-centric Crescent City eateries, Cochon, Butcher and Herbsaint. The interest in local meats and cheeses, says Ryals, “has turned everything around for us. We’re not going to get rich, but we’re going to make a living at it and keep our farm afloat.”