Coach Farm, Pine Plains, N.Y., introduced Rawstruck, raw milk aged goat cheese.
Made just one day each month, Rawstruck is created from the milk of Coach Farm's own herd of dairy goats. The curd is hand-ladled, hand-shaped and set to age for 60 days before its release.
To help name this new cheese, Coach Farm teamed up with Culture: the Word on Cheese magazine to create a public naming contest through the combined social media channels. To engage the public and encourage name submissions, videos of the process were posted online and bloggers were asked to submit product reviews and pairing ideas. Rawstruck has been described as having "a surprising depth of flavor that pleasantly lingers"; "a cheese with a crumbly texture at first that literally melts in your mouth;" and the "angel food of goat's milk cheese" by bloggers and industry gurus.
"The response to the program was overwhelming," says Steven Margarites, president. "But, the name that best captured the adjectives that the bloggers used to describe the cheese was Rawstruck."
Rawstruck is available in 4-pound wheels with a suggested retail price of $24.99 per pound.