Creekside Cheese + Creamery
Creekside Cheese + Creamery is a small farm-based creamery nestled into the mountains at the eastern end of British Columbia’s lush and beautiful Fraser Valley. A single-source creamery, Creekside Cheese + Creamery is located with and sources all their milk from Creekside Dairy, a certified organic family owned and operated dairy farm.
Owned and operated by husband-and-wife team Johannes and Julaine Treur, Creekside Cheese + Creamery was established in 2020 after many years of dreaming and planning. Johannes comes from a long line of dairy farmers: he can trace his dairy farming lineage back through 6 generations. Many of his ancestry also made cheese on their farms. Johannes immigrated to Canada from the Netherlands in 2002 and began dairy farming in the Fraser Valley a short time later. He and Julaine were married in 2005. Although Julaine was not originally from a dairy farming background, she immediately fell in love with the farm, the cows, and the farming lifestyle, wholehearted immersing herself in all things “dairy”. The couple began sharing their farm and farming practices with the world via social media in 2014, and as their online community grew to tens of thousands of followers keen to learn all about dairy farming, so did requests for milk and other dairy products “right from the farm.” In 2019, the Treurs added Saturday beef sales to their farming business, and soon their loyal customers were asking for more options, specifically milk and cheese. Curious about cheesemaking, Johannes began experimenting with making Gouda at home, gaining experience working with milk, collaborating with other cheesemakers, and tweaking his recipe to produce some delicious cheeses enjoyed by the farm family. In early 2020, Johannes and Julaine had the unique opportunity to purchase a complete cheese processing facility housed in a mobile home trailer from a French-born cheese maker in Quesnel, British Columbia. The sale was finalized in March 2020, and included a provision for hands on training from the previous owner in his methods and authentic alpine recipes.
Construction on the cheese shop and underground cheese cave began in November 2020, and the Treurs first began making cheese in June 2021. The cheese shop officially opened in August 2021.
The Treur family is excited to bring certified organic, hand crafted cheeses to the local market here in the Fraser Valley and across British Columbia. They look forward to continuing to share their farming and cheesemaking life with the public too. Follow them on social media to keep up to date on what’s happening on the farm and in the cheesemaking room.
