Old Chatham Sheepherding Company

Tom and Nancy Clark founded Old Chatham Creamery in 1993 in the rolling hills of the Hudson Valley. Prior to this, sheep dairies were exceedingly rare in the United States, and Tom and Nancy decided to trail-blaze the way for many other sheep dairies to come. Then, they served the local area and New York City restaurants with only two products, Hudson Valley Camembert and Plain Sheep Yogurt.

In 2012, Dr. Dave Galton, professor emeritus of Cornell University, began supplying Old Chatham Creamery with sheep milk. Dave taught dairy science for over 33 years; his extensive engagement with undergraduates and dairy farms on both a national and international level gave him the experience needed to tackle the rather difficult task of sheep and goat farming. In the Fall of 2014, after expressing immense interest in the artisanal work of the creamery, Dave and his wife Sally acquired the operation and never looked back.

They set up their newly built state of the art creamery just minutes away from both their family-owned sheep and goat dairy and cow dairy. Their sheep and goat farm has some of the most advanced goat and sheep milking and monitoring equipment, with around 25% of the total milking sheep population in the country (over 2,100!). All of their animals are fed with a high quality combination of locally sourced hay and grains, because local is better.