Join our partner Oryana Community Co-op for their fourth annual Farm Tour on Sunday, Aug. 27 from 1–4 p.m. at Idyll Farms, 10901 E Peterson Park Rd, in Northport. Get a first hand look at where Oryana gets some of the delicious, local goat cheese you’ve come to know and love.
Visitors to the farm in Northport will meet the farmers and staff, take self-guided tours, view the creamery, pet baby goats, and enjoy delicious samples of Idyll Farms award-winning cheese. They will have the opportunity to craft their own flavored chèvre goat cheese, press their own cider from apples grown on the farm, and participate in goat yoga sessions (bring your own yoga mat.) Goat cheese products will also be available for purchase. Visitors may bring a blanket to relax on the farm and enjoy the beautiful scenery.
Idyll Farms is a beautiful Certified Humane® goat farm and creamery in Leelanau County that supplies Oryana with high quality, award-winning goat cheese products. The farm goats graze about 200 acres of Leelanau Peninsula lush grasses, trees, leaves, brush and wildflowers and the farm manages the pastures to be as fertile as possible by adding organic compost and probiotic whey (from the cheese making) and using rotational grazing practices. Idyll Farms won seven awards at the American Cheese Society competition this year.
For more information, call Stephanie Matthewson at 231-947-0191. Visit Oryana’s webpage to learn more about the co-op.
Oryana’s history
Founded in 1973, Oryana is a community-owned cooperative and Michigan’s first Certified Organic Retailer. Today, Oryana has more than 7,000 members and generates more than $17 million annually in sales from its 10,000-square-foot facility in Traverse City. The co-op carries northern Michigan’s largest selection of locally-sourced goods and provides the region’s widest selected of fresh organic and locally-grown produce.
As Traverse City has grown, Oryana has also seen incredible growth. In 2006, the co-op expanded its building in a former lumber store on Tenth Street in Traverse City, doubling the size. A year and a half ago, Oryana Refreshed was finished, a project which remodeled and upgraded essentially the entire store. Capital was put into new cashier lanes, new shelving, and expanding options in various sections like meats and cheeses. Oryana also added 800 square feet to its cafe, allowing customers a more comfortable space to enjoy their food. It’s made an amazing impact on the business, as its 2016 sales totaled $17 million!
Oryana has long been focused on what it means to be a part of the community, and part of this has been evidenced in their engagement with the Chamber. In 2014, Oryana was named the Hagerty Small Business of the Year, an award that general manager Steve Nance says exemplifies Oryana’s goal to do more good in the area.
“Being a cooperative business allows you to reinvest in the community, and the Chamber has worked to find more avenues to do so for us and others,” he says. “At Oryana, we are always focused on our ‘ends’, which is essentially our mission to provide for the community as best as we can.”
