About Us

​​​​West River Creamery is located at Middletown Farm, which is nestled between three mountains in Londonderry, VT.  The farm is over 200 hundred acres and has been an operating dairy farm since 1945. The size of the herd and the nature of the business has been evolving over the years.

Owner and cheese maker Charlie Parant had been making cheese for several farmstead cheese producers before starting his own business in 2003. Charlie first began making cheese in 1980 with the milk from his wife Jane’s herd of 20 Nubian and Toggenburg goats. A variety of goat, cow, and sheep milk cheeses are produced here. This is a small family operation where Charlie and Jane, and their adult children, Mathew and Allison, are involved in all areas of production, marketing, and affiance.
 
At any given time there are about 18 milking Guernsey cows, from a closed herd all tested to have the A2/A2 protein that reside at Middletown Farm. We do not use RGBH hormones, and vegetarian rennet is used in all the cheeses.  The cows are pastured from May through November.  We adhere to traditional methods of cheese making, from stirring and cutting the curd by hand.  The aging facility is temperature and humidity controlled, and is where each individual type of cheese develops its unique character. T he Creamery bottles our A2A2 Guernsey milk, which is sold locally, as well as used by a local restaurant solely for use in their milkshakes. The Creamery also 
purchases high quality sheep and goat milk from a local Amish milk cooperative.


Three families make the production of this cheese possible. Barry and Wendy Rowland - the owners and stewards of the farm, Myles Rawson and Amanda Connors, who lovingly care for and milk the herd, and the Parant family, owners of West River Creamery. The Parant family has always been involved in agriculture, from 4H to FFA . The three families continue to work toward a mutual goal: keeping this Vermont dairy farm sustainable.