Anne’s Story

by Florence Fabricant, The New York Times, October 14, 2021

Anne Saxelby, a pioneer in championing fine American cheeses at a time when cheese lovers largely looked to Europe for such artisanal products, died on Saturday at her home in Brooklyn. She was 40.

The cause was a heart condition, said her husband, Patrick Martins, an owner of Heritage Foods USA, a purveyor of meat and poultry from independent American farmers.

In 2006, when Ms. Saxelby opened Saxelby Cheesemongers, the American cheese industry was largely just that: industrial and mass market. Her shop was a daring enterprise that carried only American-made cheeses from small producers.

The space was hardly more than a nook with a refrigerator in the original Essex Market on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Almost immediately, Ms. Saxelby attracted attention among cheese lovers, and especially among chefs in the growing farm-to-table movement.

In 2017, she opened another store in a more spacious location in Chelsea Market, keeping the Essex Street spot until that market closed in 2019. With a business partner, Benoit Breal, she also opened a warehouse space in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn.

News of Ms. Saxelby’s death resonated throughout the food world.

“Her passion for celebrating American farmstead cheese influenced a generation of cheese makers, chefs, cheese enthusiasts and friends and changed the way we engage with American foods,” Michael Anthony, the executive chef of Gramercy Tavern in Manhattan and a regular customer, said in an interview.

Steven Jenkins, a former cheesemonger at Fairway Market, said in a statement: “Anne Saxelby was the U.S. ambassador for American cheese makers and their handmade cheeses. Her yearslong, tireless effort to promote them and make them mainstream will forever have its effect, and will long be remembered.”

Anne Therese Saxelby was born on March 25, 1981, in Dayton, Ohio, to Bill Saxelby, an entrepreneur, and Pam (Reesman) Saxelby, a children’s book author. She grew up in Libertyville, Ill., a northern suburb of Chicago.

Bill Saxelby said in an email that his daughter’s interest in cheese started when she was young. The family’s “classic Midwest” cheese knowledge was limited to Kraft singles, he said, but while Anne was studying at Libertyville Community High School she wrote a thesis about decay and fermentation, a cornerstone of cheesemaking. She moved to New York in 1999 to attend a studio art program at New York University’s Steinhardt School.

Her introduction to American cheese makers came in 2003, after art school, when she met the people who ran Cato Corner Farm in Colchester, Conn., and began working there, learning to make raw milk cheese. From there her career picked up speed.

Ms. Saxelby worked for a year at Murray’s Cheese, one of Manhattan’s premier cheese shops, where “she was among the most talented of those I trained,” Rob Kaufelt, the store’s former owner, said in an email.

Her next move was to Europe. She interned in Paris with Hervé Mons, a cheese master, and then worked on farms in France and Italy to learn about goat and sheep milk cheeses, picking up fluency in French, Italian and Spanish along the way.

But she was convinced that American cheese producers were capable of competing with Europeans. She started her business with money from her father, who said that after just six months the store had a positive cash flow. Three months after that, Ms. Saxelby was able to pay herself a salary. She said she chose Essex Market as her first location because she believed strongly in supporting community initiatives.

Ms. Saxelby was an advocate for dozens of farms, putting many of them on the map and their names on shopping lists.

She was an early supporter of Jasper Hill Farm in Greensboro, Vt., which opened just a couple of years before she started her business, and she helped introduce their wheels and wedges to many chefs. She also collaborated with the farm on a prizewinning Alpine-style cheese called Calderwood, which she introduced at her store.

“We grew up in cheese together,” Mateo Kehler, who started Jasper Hill Farm with his brother, Andy, said by phone. “Thanks to her, our cheeses are on menus all over the city.”

Dan Barber, the executive chef and an owner of Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, N.Y., and Blue Hill in Manhattan, said that soon after Ms. Saxelby opened her store he offered a cheese plate on the menu with three classic European cheeses, like Beaufort, tomme and Vacherin, paired with three American cheeses.

“Anne’s excitement for this plate was palpable; in the end I called it the Saxelby cheese plate,” he said by email. “She said that the pairing was a great way to talk not just about the emergence of American cheese, but how our cheesemakers were building on traditions and creating new ways to express old ideas.”

In addition to her husband and father, Ms. Saxelby is survived by her mother; a son, Max Martins; two daughters, Reggie and Josie Martins; a sister, Megan Saxelby; and a brother, Bill.

During the coronavirus pandemic Ms. Saxelby led virtual cheese tastings, sending tasting kits to participants. The store also sells crackers, charcuterie, condiments, beer and cider. (However, Mr. Martins said, Ms. Saxelby never considered carrying vegan or nondairy cheese.)

Mr. Breal, her business partner, said the company would continue to move forward, “one step at a time,” adding, “We plan to continue our mission to be the bridge between local cheese makers and the consumers for many years to come.”

November 30, 2021

Change is rarely a sudden shift. It’s a rising tide that swells to its greatest heights when a critical mass of people join in unison behind a powerful idea. But change often begins with an individual whose unique mix of devotion and perseverance inspires others to join a cause.

We lost one such individual this year. Our friend and collaborator Anne Saxelby — founder and proprietor of Saxelby Cheesemonger — passed away suddenly in October. Though we continue to bereave the loss of Anne, she has given a tremendous gift to the world, one of passion and vision, that survives and will shape our world for a long time to come.

Her idea was simple: show the world the diversity and complexity of American Farmstead cheeses. In an industry long fixated on tradition, her focus on New-World producers of artisanal cheese is a radical shift. For many cheese lovers, her stall in Chelsea Market is a revelation/ For us and the many small producers represented in her cheese case, Anne’s mission has been a conduit of salvation for rural communities across the country.

There is an understanding that we share with Anne: cheese is more than a delicious food. Cheese is a vehicle to add value to a staple commodity — milk — and therefore create a pathway to success for small-scale agriculture. Our food system is one where scale, industrialization, and homogenization has supplanted the role of the family farm. While decades of plummeting food prices have been a boon for consumers, they’ve been ruinous for the incomes of small farms that cannot afford to be in competition with cheap good produced by factory farming.

Anne’s vision flips this picture on its head. She has provided a megaphone for producers of farmstead cheese in the heart of our largest metropolis. In doing so, she has created an audience willing to invest in small scale agriculture and who are passionate about where their food comes from.

Saxelby Cheesemongers is New York City's first all-American cheese shop. Saxelby operates a retail shop in the Chelsea Market, ships cheese nationwide via their online store, and sells to some of New York's best chefs and restaurants. 

The relationships with their cheesemakers are the driving force behind what Saxelby does; they aim to know and celebrate the how and why behind each cheese in every season, and share that knowledge with cheese lovers everywhere. Saxelby Cheesemongers is dedicated to supporting sustainable, regenerative agriculture, bolstering rural economies, and ensuring the American artisan cheese revolution continues to thrive and grow. 

Saxelby Cheesemongers was founded by Anne Saxelby in 2006 in the Essex Market on Manhattan's Lower East Side. That first shop (a humble market stall, compared to a phone booth or a postage stamp by ardent customers) measured just over 100 square feet, but its passion and ambition to support the burgeoning American artisan cheese movement was outsized. Soon after opening Saxelby was joined by Benoit Breal, a French expatriate living in New York City whose passion for delicious, handmade food and business acumen were a perfect foil to Saxelby's extensive knowledge of American artisan cheese.

Saxelby cut her teeth working behind the cheese counter as a monger at Murray's Cheese and as an apprentice making farmstead cheese at Cato Corner Farm in Connecticut. She traveled to local cheesemakers throughout the northeastern United States and abroad — working with goat cheese makers in the Loire Valley and with affineur Herve Mons in Roanne, France to learn as much as she could about the art of making, aging, and selling cheese.

The bicycle logo is an image of Saxelby herself, bikedto work every day. In the early days of Saxelby Cheesemongers, she would deliver cheese to some of New York's finest restaurants by bike, filling up a large hiking backpack with whatever she could fit inside... (The record was a 5lb bucket of feta with some 5 or so odd pounds of cheese on top!)

Chefs like Dan Barber of Blue Hill, Mike Anthony of Gramercy Tavern, and Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson of Frenchette are Saxelby's partners in crime and champions of the American artisan cheese movement. Their commitment to sourcing superlative ingredients, maintaining close relationships with their purveyors, and supporting small, weird (in a good way), likeminded  businesses has supported Saxelby Cheesemongers throughout the years and have helped to elevate the American artisan cheese movement into the consciousness of cheese lovers across the country.

In 2011 Saxelby Cheesemongers opened their first 'cave' in Red Hook, Brooklyn dedicated to wholesale and mail order operations. In 2017 Saxelby Cheesemongers opened a retail location in the Chelsea Market where they expanded their selection to include domestic craft beer and cider, grilled cheese sandwiches, and cheese trays and platters.

The New Rules of Cheese

Ten Speed Press, 2020

“Anne Saxelby is your trusted friend at the cheese counter, pointing you to a bolder, less familiar palate, nudging you away from the basic cheddar (which is not to say she doesn’t wax poetic about those, too) towards, say, a grass-fed sheep’s milk from North Carolina or a salt-cured feta from New Hampshire. The New Rules of Cheese will empower you to choose a more flavorful future, one that supports the small dairies and cheesemakers that further the diverse and resilient landscape we so desperately need.”

—Dan Barber, chef and co-owner of Blue Hill

Anne's book is a fun and quirky guide to the essential rules for enjoying cheese, including tips on selecting and tasting different varieties, serving and pairing cheeses, as well as a brief history on cheese and a rundown of how cheeses are made.

This richly illustrated book from a lauded cheesemonger is perfect for all cheese fans, from newcomers to experts. It will teach you how to make a stylish cheese platter, repurpose nibs and bits of leftover cheese into something delicious, and expand your cheese palate and taste cheeses properly.

Alongside the history and fundamentals of cheese-making, you'll even learn why cheese is actually good for you (and doesn't make you fat!), find enlightenment on the great dairy debate—pasteurized versus not pasteurized—and improve your cheese vocabulary with a handy lexicon chart.