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June 3, 2024
ROCKLAND – One of Brown County’s well-known small businesses – Scray Cheese – is celebrating its centennial in 2024.
At a special celebration set for Saturday, June 22, the fourth-generation cheesemaker will pay homage to its legacy, while looking forward to a path of growth – which is supported partly by the Scray family’s decision to sell 70% of the business to Mike and Chris Faucett, owners of Malcore Foods in Appleton.
A few more details
The business was founded in 1924 by Edward Scray, and, though the business has expanded through the years, Scray Cheese still sits on its original footprint.
In 1948, the business was purchased by Edward’s son, World War II veteran Edgar, who remained the patriarch of the business until he died in 2019, at age 97.
From 1982 until Malcore Foods purchased the majority interest in 2021, the owner had been Jim Scray, Edgar’s son and third-generation owner and cheesemaker.+
And though Malcore Foods has been a longtime partner with Scray Cheese, it was Jim and his fourth-generation daughter, Kayla Scray Motkowski, who laid the groundwork for the 2021 sale to expand the business.
Both Jim and Kayla each retain a 10% interest in Scray Cheese.
The remaining 10% is owned by Patrick Evans, who is also an owner of Malcore Foods – which cuts and wraps Wisconsin cheeses, sells cheese itself under the Arthur Bay label and creates other food products, such as cheese spreads and liver pate.
Today, it’s the younger generation of the Faucett family who run day-to-day operations at Scray Cheese.
Cheesemaker Will Faucett, 28, is the general manager, while his brother John Faucett, 26, is the administration manager.
Chelsea Young, 39, is the store manager and also shares in other responsibilities, including marketing at the cheese factory and shoppe, located at 2082 Old Martin Road in De Pere.
“We’re not changing the recipe, we’re not changing the name,” Will, who, before coming to Scray Cheese, managed production at Malcore Foods, said. “We’re working to expand the number of customers we reach with the same core values the Scrays had.”
Will said it was important to the entire Faucett family to have Jim and Kayla remain owners in the business.
“We try to keep the family involved,” he said. “It’s somebody’s baby. It’s been in their family for 100 years.”
Will said Mike Faucett worked with Jim for a year to learn the processes Scray Cheese uses to make cheese.
And, he said, it was the continued partnership with Kayla that led to the smooth transition of the business side of Scray Cheese to the Faucett family.
Kayla said she spearheaded the 2009 renovation of the home attached to the cheese factory to create the Scray Cheese Shoppe, complete with viewing windows into the cheese factory – a move that expanded the business.
“We still want this to succeed, and our name and our family legacy… and grow, and now we have the tools in place to do something like that,” Kayla said.
Kayla said Malcore Foods was Scray’s distributing company for its Gouda and curds.
“They were able to expand it in a way we weren’t able to,” she said. “They are still making the product the same as we did and have the same farmers.”
As for her father, who spent decades in the business, Kayla said, “he’s happy as a clam now.”
“He’s the one who would always be there at one in the morning,” she said. “Now, they only call him if they have questions or emergencies. He does stop by once in a while.”
Kayla said she passed on the purchasing duties to Bev Gage – a 20-year Scray employee and showed John the ins and outs of bookkeeping.
Will, she said, handled the sales and quantity and quality aspects of the business.
“They split (duties) up into specific things,” she said. “I still jump in when they need (help).”
The family legacy continues
Will said the legacy of the Scray family continues, especially in the family atmosphere of the business.
“We’re not a big corporation…,” he said. “Everybody gets along well – it’s like a little family.”
The key, Will said, is finding employees who are interested in, and excited about, growing with the company.
“Our cheesemakers will talk about the cheese process randomly because that’s the kind of environment the Scrays always had,” he said.
Though there’s been no change to the Scray Cheese recipes, Will said there has been a change in sales – with the company seeing significant growth.
Will said when the Faucett family purchased 70% of the business, Scray Cheese had two certified cheesemakers.
Today, it has six certified cheesemakers and produces 160,000 pounds on average of cheese each month – up from the 100,000 pounds on average produced in 2020.
The total employee count, including full-time and part-time employees, Will said, is up to 28 people – in comparison to 2020’s 12 full-time and three part-time employees.
“The synergies between Malcore and Scray’s has helped to grow the company, but most of our growth has come from adding new customers and product lines,” he said. “The breaded curds are one of the products that have been taking off since we started (selling it) a few months ago. The opportunities with Malcore help, but I don’t want to understate the amount of growth that comes from our employees’ efforts to find new customers and distributors.”
Every year for the past three years, Will said Scray Cheese has produced more cheese than the previous year – estimating the growth at about 30%.
“And in the first five months of this year, we’ve produced more vats than in the last five months of last year,” he said.
Though the business’s leadership has changed, Scray Cheese has always partnered with local milk-producing farmers – something Will said it still does today.
“We still get our milk from local farms,” he said. “We currently have 11.”
Both Young and Will said they are striving to get the Scray Cheese’s name out more in the local community by partnering with the downtown businesses of Definitely De Pere.
For example, Will said Scrays partnered with Seroogy’s for a trick-or-treat event where they distributed 500 four-ounce bags of cheese curds.
“We’re excited to be in a lot more (events) this year,” Young said.
Will said he credits Young for helping move the business forward.
“Chelsea has been instrumental in all of this,” he said. “She came into packaging, and she’s always said she wanted to do more.”
Young said the big thing she is focusing on is “getting people out here.”
“We get people who say, ‘We never knew you were out here,’” she said.
‘Curd is king’ at Scray’s
That significant growth at Scray Cheese, Will said, is, in part, due to the ramp-up in production of cheese curds – from two days a week before the ownership change to five days a week of production.
“Curd is king,” Young said.
Will said visitors to the Scray Cheese Shoppe can expect to find fresh curds available Monday through Thursday and Saturday mornings.
“Sometimes, people get curds that have been out of the vat less than a minute,” he said.
Young said Scrays only ships curds Monday and Tuesday “because we don’t want them sitting over the weekend.”
Scray Cheese, she said, has also started making Gouda curds, which customers love.
“You can only get Gouda curds here,” she said. “We post on Facebook when we have them in the store.”
The cheesemaking process, Young said, is hard work – specifically the “matting” process.
“Before we mill it into the cheese curd shape, you have to flip (the mats of cheese – there are 1,500 pounds of cheese in each vat) to flatten them out so they fit through the miller (to create the curd shape). You’re picking up like 50 pounds.”
Besides cheese curds, Young said Scray’s most popular cheese is its Gouda – and in that category, the bestseller is the smoked Gouda.
Creating that, Will said, is a physical job, too – as the team creates the rounds of Gouda and two days later covers them with real red wax.
Time to celebrate
Will said the Scrays team is opening the cheese shop from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, June 22 – with an outdoor celebration planned from noon to 3 p.m.
Young said it will be a customer appreciation party for “giving us 100 great years.”
“We have a few specials going on in the store – (including) $2 cheese curds with purchase,” he said.
Young said there will also be kids’ swag bags, a bouncy house and an anniversary cake.
She said she is also creating a timeline display that celebrates Scray Cheese’s history and legacy, and the company of today.
Kayla said the Scray family will be there to help celebrate.
“It’s exciting,” she said. “I can’t believe it’s been 100 years.”
A look to the future
Will said Scray Cheese – which is located a few minutes outside of east De Pere – has, for the most part, always focused on curds and cheddar, Edam, Gouda and Fontina cheeses.
Though, he said, the company has done some experimentation with natural flavors to create specialty items within those categories – such as the blueberry cheddar and the Door County cherry cheddar – and plans to continue to do that.
“There’s always somebody asking about how we can do something better,” he said. “That’s why a small business is important. You have a lot of people committed to this community and making the best product we can.”
Will said that between the five members of his family – his parents, Mike and Chris; his brother, John; and his other brother, Michael, who is an engineer for General Motors in Michigan – Scray Cheese and Malcore Foods are a major topic of discussion.
“The five of us talk about the companies all the time,” he said. “We basically eat, sleep and breathe cheese.”
Will said he sees even more growth over the next three years.
“There’s a ton of room for growth,” he said. “We have to be strategic on how we do it.”
