A Maryland small business on how buying local is a very big deal

Cheese lovers can now find Firefly Farms goat cheeses in grocery store chains, but when Mike Koch and Pablo Solanet started their business in 2002, they were operating on a very small scale and doing everything themselves. “We started in the way that a lot of cheesemakers do on a farmstead on our property,” said Koch, describing the first operation in Garrett County, Maryland, as a microbusiness. “Pablo was a fulltime goatherd,” Koch said with a laugh. Their cheeses were sold at farmers markets across the D.C. area, and Koch said they marked their first full month in business that year with “just shy of $700 of sales for the month.” Now, Koch told WTOP, “between the retail business and the manufacturing business, it looks like 2022 will finish a little over $4 million” in business.