Adrian Buff brings Swiss cheesemaking tradition to his family’s Ava dairy
STORY AND PHOTOS bY Sara Schafer
Inside a renovated dairy barn near Mountain Grove, Adrian Buff moves with practiced precision. Steam rises from a vat of milk he hauled that morning from his family’s farm in Ava. Dressed in scrubs, a hairnet and a long apron, Adrian smiles as he checks off the many steps of crafting artisan cheese.
“It’s just a good day whenever I’m making cheese,” he says.
Adrian works through the first steps almost instinctively — warming the milk, adding cultures, watching the clock as it rests. Then comes the transformation. A coagulant turns the frothy milk into something closer to a soft pudding. He studies it, then cuts into the surface, beginning the slow process of turning milk into cheese.
While Adrian makes small-batch cheese in the Missouri Ozarks, his training took place more than 4,000 miles away — in Sursee, Switzerland. Now, he’s applying generations of Swiss cheesemaking tradition to his family’s farm. He transforms farm-fresh milk into a value-added product that can be aged, sold and shared far shared far beyond the family farm.
Road to Missouri
In 1997, when Adrian was 7, his family moved from eastern Switzerland to Ava. His parents, Heinz and the late Vroni Buff, were Swiss dairy farmers, but they grew tired of ever-increasing dairy regulations and the winter weather.
The couple found an existing dairy in Ava and made it the home for their four children, Adrian, Christina, Sandra and Kathrin. To honor their Swiss roots, the Buffs named their farm Grison Dairy, an homage to the region where they lived. Today, they milk around 100 Holsteins and Brown Swiss cows.
By the time Adrian turned 20, he knew Missouri was where he wanted to spend his life. However, his visa was expiring, and he was also looking for a way to add value to his family’s farm that is served by White River Valley Electric Cooperative.
His solution: a cheesemaker apprenticeship in Switzerland. “My mom said, ‘We’ve already got the milk, and at the end of the day, you have a product you can hold in your hands. You can see what you’ve done,’ ” Adrian recalls. “Plus, I always liked eating cheese.”
Adrian and his godmother, who lived in central Switzerland, found him a three-year apprenticeship at Napf-Chäsi. The cheese dairy is located at the foot of the Napf mountain. Thankfully, Adrian’s early mornings on the dairy farm helped him easily adjust to the 5 a.m. plant shifts.
By the end of the first year, Adrian knew he’d made the right decision. “I knew I could eventually start something at our farm and saw a future for keeping the farm going through a value-added product,” he says.
After returning to the U.S., Adrian worked at a startup creamery in Missouri, an established creamery in Illinois and a milk bottling plant in Georgia. These experiences helped prepare him to start his own cheese business.
In March 2021, Adrian started leasing the small cheese plant in Mountain Grove and transformed its parlor into his headquarters. Over time, he’s added vats of varying sizes, cheese storage and technology.
From Milk to Wheel
About once a week, Adrian turns fresh milk from his family’s Ava dairy into around 200 pounds of small-batch, Alpine-style cheeses. The process is equal parts science and craft and ends with cheeses you’ll never find at your local grocery store. Rachel Carter, a fellow dairy farmer, helps Adrian at the Mountain Grove plant.
Adrian slowly warms the farm-fresh milk. Then he adds cultures to kickstart fermentation. “The cultures eat the lactic acid in the milk, which creates enzymes and helps develop the flavor of the cheese,” he says. “Luckily I enjoy chemistry and math.”
After about 45 minutes of incubation, the transformation starts. A vegetarian coagulant thickens the liquid into something closer to pudding. Adrian cuts into it, separating curds and whey, then stirs as the mixture slowly changes texture.
From there, it’s a matter of control — especially heat. For many of his cheeses, Adrian uses a washed-curd method, adding water and adjusting temperature to manage moisture. “It’s like a steak on the grill,” he says. “When you add heat, it pulls together and releases moisture.”
Once the whey is drained, the curds are transferred into circular molds. Some cheeses press under their own weight, while others require added pressure. Each wheel is flipped and monitored as it begins to take shape, then left to rest as the cultures continue their work.
Next comes the brine — a saltwater bath where the cheeses soak for 12 to 48 hours. “Every cheese that gets washed is washed every day for 10 days straight,” Rachel says. “Then we wash them three times a week for a few months, depending on the type of cheese.”
After that, they move into aging, tucked into walk-in coolers and a retrofitted semi-trailer that serves as a cheese cave. Then, as Adrian puts it, it becomes a lesson in patience. Some cheeses are ready in as little as 30 days. Others take months or even up to two years to age. Each cheese wheel has a unique make sheet — a detailed record of its recipe and process — that follows it through its life until it is sliced and sold.
Signature Cheeses
Adrian makes around 10 varieties of cheese. They all offer a uniquely Swiss flavor profile. While he’s always experimenting with new varieties to offer, these are his most common cheeses:
- Grisontaler: Named for the family farm and Switzerland’s Emmentaler, this raw milk cheese is aged at least 60 days. It has a nutty flavor that deepens as it ages and was one of Adrian’s early original recipes.
- Raclette of the Ozarks: Inspired by a traditional cheese from southern Switzerland, this variety is known for its melting qualities. It is used for warm dishes such as potatoes and other comfort foods.
- Säntis: Modeled after Appenzeller and named for a mountain in eastern Switzerland, this seasonal cheese is made with spring milk and aged at least 60 days. It is washed in a blend of herbs and local beer during aging, developing a savory flavor.
- Enzian Bleu: This raw milk blue cheese is named for the Alpine flower Adrian remembers from his Swiss childhood. It has a bold and creamy profile.
Adrian sells cheese through retail stores throughout Missouri and nearby states, as he’s built relationships with many small cheese shops, health food stores and butcher shops. He also has 50 wholesale partners across mostly the Midwest who market his products.
Throughout the year, Adrian is also a mainstay at several farmers markets, including the City Market in Kansas City, the Lincoln University Farmers Market in Jefferson City and the Webb City Farmers Market. Many customers, Adrian admits, are not expecting the strong and complex flavors in his cheeses.
“But then they really enjoy the cheese,” he says. “I had one guy in St. Louis try Grisontaler and say, ‘This is amazing.’ Then we went onto the Ozark Mutschli, and he said, ‘This one is even better.’ ”
Those experiences with customers are what keeps Adrian committed to the long hours in the cheese plant and the many miles he clocks for deliveries. Those first bites often come with surprise — then appreciation.
For Adrian, watching something he made in a small Ozarks barn connect people to Switzerland never gets old. What started as a way to add value to the family farm has become something more — a bridge between generations, countries and traditions.
Learn more about Grison Dairy & Creamery at grisondairy.com. You can also follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
Email Sara Schafer at sschafer@ruralmissouri.coop.