It Started in Sonoma County

Laura’s first attempt at making cheese and yogurt was not satisfactory, as her knowledge of goat cheese making was limited. In 1979, she decided to travel to France in hopes of discovering the secret of making tasty goat cheese. While living with four French farmstead families, she learned the right cheesemaking methods. Back home, she combined her knowledge gleaned in France with her creativity to achieve her own cheese-making style. Soon she was producing and selling her first cheeses.

One of her very first customers was the legendary chef Alice Waters, owner of Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, Calif. Waters fell in love with Laura’s cheeses and decided to place a standing order for the restaurant (50 pounds a week). At Chez Panisse, Waters breaded and baked sliced Laura Chenel goat cheese and nestled it in beds of mesclun greens, thus creating the iconic California goat cheese salad. Thanks to this relationship, Laura Chenel gained prominence in the food-service community. With demand soaring, Laura Chenel moved to a Santa Rosa creamery in 1981, and Laura sold her herd to focus on high-quality cheese-making.

By the mid-1990s, Laura was selling more than 2 million pounds of cheese a year. The company's success allowed her to move into a new facility at the old Clover Stornetta dairy building in Sonoma and introduce new cheese formats, including her signature fresh goat cheese pillows.

Longing to return full-time to her herd of 500 goats, Laura sold the company to the French Triballat family, a name in artisan goat cheese for four generations. The Triballats' values and dedication to quality mirrored Laura's own philosophy, ensuring that her high-quality, great-tasting goat milk products remain the same for years to come.

Always looking to improve, Laura Chenel built a new, state-of-the-art creamery, not far from where Laura sold her first goat cheese. The facility, the first in cheese production to receive LEED Gold certification, reflects the company's investment in sustainable practices, energy-efficient technologies and employee safety, definitively fixing Laura Chenel's roots in the Sonoma County terroir.