Bob Wills
Clock Shadow Creamery
Milwaukee, Wis.
This is a state in which being called a “cheesehead” is a point of pride. In other words: Wisconsinites love their cultured dairy. All the better if it’s made in a hyper-energy-efficient urban creamery that uses all local milk!
Why we chose this cheese:
Wills opened Clock Shadow in 2012 and designed his building to be one of the greenest in the city. It’s built on a cleaned-up brownfield site from over 50 percent recycled materials. The facility is heated by 27 geothermal wells and has a green roof that processes rainwater. Heck, the whey and washwater from the cheesemaking process even goes into an anaerobic digester, which produces more energy than the entire creamery uses. And Clock Shadow’s milk comes from dairy farmers who don’t use growth hormones, non-therapeutic antibiotics, or GMO feed.
City cheese, country cheese:
Wills also owns Cedar Grove Cheese, which is located 100 miles away in the small town of Plain. He says the bucolic setting of Plain is a stark contrast to the urban grit of Milwaukee. “Things are just a little different in cities,” he says. “In fact, my two creameries probably couldn’t be more different.”
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