And if you're looking for a particular style of European cheese, chances are Heberlein stocks a local equivalent. His goal: to have the biggest selection of regional and Massachusetts cheeses around. Volante Farms stocks 99 cheeses - just shy of the 100 mark, as Heberlein bemoaned - and 77 of those cheeses are from New England. "If we're going to do cheese, why not try to do as much local as we can?" I would research and try to find every place in New England we could get," he said. Eventually, the stock grew large enough that the farm stand added a second cheese case across the store. "It really worked out for us bringing different things in," he said. Initially, Heberlein had dry food shelves next to a cold case of prepared foods near the entrance of the kitchen, but when he started expanding the cheese selection, he turned the dry shelves into a cold case for cheese. "I'd like to expand the food, but I'd love to expand the cheese," Heberlein said. As time went on, he started researching cheese to expand the variety of what Volante could stock. "I got scolded by a couple cheesemakers," he said, who commented on the way he was doing cuts of different local cheeses. When he first started, Heberlein brought a in handful of cheeses and started offering cuts of the cheeses in the store. The farm considered selling cheese, and when Heberlein was asked if he wanted to be in charge of the program, that sealed the deal for his cheese-filled future. Heberlein started working at Volante Farms a few months before the opening of the new farm stand, and he helped develop plans for the deli and prepared foods. Since its founding in 1917, the farm has moved and expanded a handful of times, from Newton to Needham, and in 2012 the family constructed a new farm stand at its current location. The fourth generation of the Volante family runs Volante Farms today. ![]() The farm, which is about to celebrate a century in business, has nearly 100 cheeses on hand at its suburban farm stand at 292 Forest St. Todd Heberlein is chief in charge of cheese at Volante Farms in Needham.
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