What happens when you mix LaClare Creamery’s goat cheese with real lemon and a touch of vanilla? You get an award-winning product, according to Alex Coenen, president at LaClare Creamery in Malone.
LaClare’s Lemon Bar Goat Cheese was recently awarded second place in the flavored goat milk cheese category at the 2025 Wisconsin State Fair Dairy Products Contest.
With LaClare’s original goat cheese as its base, the product delivers a creamy indulgence perfect for warm-weather dishes and desserts.
Coenen says LaClare — one of the country’s only 100% domestically produced goat cheese brands — put a critical focus on customer feedback in developing the new flavor. Getting to the lemon flavor was a process of testing about 10 different options. Feedback came from existing customers, conversations at trade shows, handing out samples and listening to consumer trends. LaClare is always trying to stay ahead of trending flavors, he says.
“We heard with resounding clarity that citrus and goat cheese is a favorite,” Coenen says. “With that we decided that we wanted to go out and create something a little bit unique, and that’s how we landed on the lemon.”
While goat cheese has a citrusy flavor on its own, Coenen says, the addition of real lemon amps it up. Combined with vanilla, the cheese offers a dessert-like lemon bar flavor with which consumers might be familiar.
Coenen anticipates this product will be sold year-round at LaClare’s retail store in Malone and in its online store, but the product is being shipped to retail stores as well.
The Lemon Bar Goat Cheese has been one of LaClare’s best product launches, even though it’s only been available since this past spring.
“We’re proud to have Lemon Bar recognized at the Wisconsin State Fair,” said Patrick Considine, national sales director at LaClare. “We believed in this recipe from the start, and now we have the recognition to confirm it.”
— Chris Rugowski
