sheep dairy association of wisconsin’s annual gathering

Every year, one of our members graciously hosts us, our friends, our families and local community leaders to commemorate our wonderful producers and processors on all their achievements. As a small, local organization representing Wisconsin’s remarkable, growing sheep dairy industry, we love celebrating our milestones! We typically begin this event by serving guests unique sheep milk creations, with past favorites including sheep milk gelato and sheep milk cheese curds. Then, we have one of our members introduce us to their farm or processing plant. They answer questions about anything you can think of related to our dairy sheep industry, from raising dairy sheep, finding processors to purchase your milk and building relationships with those processors, to selling products at farmers’ markets, and many other aspects of the industry. The event then moves into a curated cheese tasting, where all our guests get to sample our members’ sheep milk cheeses! We then honor a preselected individual with our SDAW Friend of the Sheep Dairy Industry Award to thank them for their contributions. Guided tours are provided by the host and the day ends with time to chat and catch up.