So You Want To Be A Cheesemaker?

Wisconsin is home to more than 1,200 licensed cheesemakers. In 2008 alone, 39 aspiring men and women earned their cheesemaker licenses -- a fairly involved process that involves significant classroom time and hundreds of hours working as an apprentice cheesemaker in a working cheese factory.

Jon Metzig, a young cheesemaker who grew up in his family's cheese factory, Union Star Cheese, near Fremont, Wis., decided to follow in his father's footsteps and earned his cheesemaker's license while still in high school. Today, he has embarked on a cheesemaking career, and will spend the next two months working with cheesemakers in Ireland, England, Switzerland and Germany to learn Old World techniques that he hopes to bring back to the United States.