Official Cheesemonger
2012 Official Conference Cheesemongers
ACS is pleased to announce the appointment of Alexander Kast and Rachel Perez as our 2012 Official Conference Cheesemongers. Alexander and Rachel will serve as the lead volunteers in charge of conference cheeses. They will track the movement of cheese to and from various venues, ensuring proper preparation and handling by volunteers, and overseeing a team of volunteers to deliver cheeses to the appropriate events at the appropriate times. We are proud to welcome these skilled cheesemongers to our team!
Are you interested in applying for this prestigious position in 2013? Read the full job description below and contact ACS to learn more about opportunities to shadow and/or assist the Official Conference Cheesemongers at the 2012 Conference & Competition.
Alexander Kast, A Southern Season, Chapel Hill, NC
Alexander grew up in a very food-oriented German-American family in Michigan, his father being the son of three generations of butchers in Schweinfurt, Germany. Alexander’s love for food started at a young age, where the family dinner was a very important part of the day. Members of Alexander’s family were restaurateurs and held positions at local food purveyors such as American Spoon Foods, Zingerman’s Deli and the London Chop House.
Though food was always important, Alexander first fell in love with cheese when visiting his sister and brother-in-law David Lockwood in London at Neal’s Yard Dairy. The distinct earthy aroma’s of cloth-bound cheese permeated their apartment above the current Borough market shop, embedding a sensory memory that he holds dear to this day.
In 2005 he started his first cheesemonger position at Saxelby Cheese, where he learned about the amazing, burgeoning world of farmstead American cheese. Afterward he worked at the Bedford Cheese Shop in Brooklyn under the guiding eye of Charlotte Kaimin and finished a six month training at Neal’s Yard Dairy. In 2010 he was awarded the John Crompton Memorial Scholarship for Retailers from the American Cheese Society.
Alexander is Cheese Purchaser at A Southern Season in Chapel Hill, NC and is working on crafting his own cheese consulting and events company, KastHuis LLC.
Rachel Perez, Canyon Market, San Francisco, CA
Growing up with a French father, cheese was always in Rachel’s blood. Even as a child, she gave her family detailed tasting notes about the cheese plate at the dinner table.
She started working in the food business at 14, and joined the cheese world in 2006 when she took a job as a cheese monger at South End Formaggio in Boston, MA. From there she went on to work at Whole Foods Market in Cambridge, MA, London, England and New York City where she was committed to developing the line of local and farmstead cheeses. She left Whole Foods to oversee the specialty cheese program at Crystal Food Import. She is now the grocery buyer for Canyon Market in San Francisco.
Rachel helped receive and oversee the cheeses for the ACS Judging & Competition at last year’s conference in Montréal. She looks forward to continuing to work with the American Cheese Society by supporting and promoting the American cheese industry.
