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Vermont Winter Style Print E-mail
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Made in Vermont
For these eight entrepreneurs, the Northeast Kingdom’s seal of approval attests to the quality of their product—and their lives

By Larry Olmsted
Photos by Rob Howard
Styling by Amit Gajwani



TAKE A SCENIC DRIVE THROUGH VERMONT—any drive through Vermont—and you soon get the feeling that something is missing. Amid the picturesque towns dominated by white steeples, the fields of grazing cows, and, in autumn, the Technicolor foliage, one thing you’ll never see is a billboard. Vermont is one of the few states in the union that ban these signs.

Vermont street in the winter
Quintessential Vermont
To an outsider, that lack of signage might seem like little more than a quaint idiosyncrasy, but the intent of the prohibition—to preserve the state’s unique and arresting scenery—actually reflects a deeper devotion to excellence. “We have the only state capital in the entire country that doesn’t have a McDonald’s,” notes award-winning cheesemaker Andy Kehler, co-owner of Jasper Hill Farm, in Greensboro. “I think that reflects the state’s commitment to quality.” Indeed, few things scream quality to consumers like the Made in Vermont label, which gained prominence on the state’s world-class maple syrup but has since come to signify a wide-ranging image of purity and nature. This image, in turn, has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, luring many like-minded producers obsessed with old-fashioned quality to the state.

Take, for example, Vermont’s culinary culture, where suddenly “hot” national trends like organic produce, farmers’ markets, the locavore movement, natural meats, and community-supported agriculture have long been business as usual. “My dad was the third certified-organic dairy farmer in Vermont,” says Anson Tebbetts, a former dairy farmer himself who is now one of the state’s deputy secretaries of agriculture. “He didn’t have to do a lot to convert to organic; he was pretty much doing it already.” Continues Tebbetts, “People nationwide are wondering where their food comes from. When people see the Vermont seal, they know they are getting products that are fresh, wholesome, and from a small company.”

Jasper Hill Farm proves this every morning: While most dairies produce cheese every other day or three times weekly, Andy Kehler and his brother Mateo make cheese, by hand, every day of the year. One of their most acclaimed cheeses, Constant Bliss, a favorite of celebrity chefs nationwide, was also their first creation as self-taught cheesemakers. “It’s a very low-tech cheese,” says Andy. “We started making it in five-gallon plastic buckets, and we still do. You don’t need a lot of fancy equipment to do it right.”

The commitment to excellence extends beyond Vermont’s ubiquitous cheesemaking industry. One of the state’s most famous foodies is Sam von Trapp, scion of the Austrian clan immortalized in The Sound of Music. The movie ended with the family’s flight over the Austrian Alps, but the von Trapps kept going, reaching the ski mecca of the East, Stowe, where they built the Tyrolean-themed Trapp Family Lodge and the nation’s first nordic ski center. Today, Sam, with his sister and father, runs the family businesses, which include the ski center, hotel, several restaurants, and his pet project, a maple syrup farm. “I love the sense of accountability that exists in a small state where everybody knows each other. It makes you do things right,” says von Trapp, who also coaches private ski-racing clients in Portillo, Chile, in the off-season. “Even in South America, everyone knows what Vermont stands for.”


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