The process of making Oaxacan cheese is like ballet: there’s a rhythm to it. “It’s just a beautiful dance between two people, stretching the curds into long ribbons of queso Oaxaca,” said Lisa Ochoa, co-owner of Don Froylan Creamery.
Stephani Gordon / OPB
It’s around ten in the morning when Francisco Ochoa walks into the cheesemaking room at Don Froylan Creamery, where cheese curds are forming in a vat machine.
“My favorite thing to do is make cheese,” he said.
Ochoa is the owner and head cheesemaker here at the Salem-based company, which produces authentic Mexican cheeses. It also makes the best string cheese in the U.S., according to the American Cheese Society’s 2024 competition.
“For me to do something that my dad taught me, and it’s taken me this far, I’m really honored,” Ochoa said.
‘My parents were looking for Mexican cheese in the markets, and unfortunately they couldn’t find it’
Owner Francisco Ochoa prepares queso cotija enchilado. The cheese has a chili wash on the outside.
Stephani Gordon / OPB
In the ‘90s, Ochoa’s family moved to Eugene, Oregon, from Guadalajara, Mexico, when he was around fourteen years old.
“My parents were looking for Mexican cheese in the markets, and unfortunately they couldn’t find it,” Ochoa said.
This inspired his parents, and they got the whole family to start making queso fresco in their kitchen.
Eventually, neighbors found out and wanted to buy the cheese from them. Soon enough, the whole community started buying the family’s homemade product.
“Most of the time, my dad would take me with him to go deliver cheese, to go sell cheese door to door,” Ochoa said.
He would travel with his dad from Eugene to Salem in search of Latino customers.
“But soon to realize not just Hispanic people like the cheese,” said Lisa Ochoa, Francisco’s life and business partner. “This is really good cheese in general.”
The Ochoas started dating when they were in high school, and Lisa remembers the family’s early days of making cheese in stainless steel tubs.
“I was just a teenager, but I was just like, ‘wow, this is so hands-on,’ she said. “Literally their heart and soul was in this cheesemaking.”
Francisco and Lisa Ochoa started dating when they were in high school. “I was just a teenager, but I was just like, ‘wow, this is so hands-on,’ she said. “Literally their heart and soul was in this cheesemaking.”
Stephani Gordon / OPB
Ochoa’s father Froylan’s dream was to open a creamery, but he didn’t know where to begin.
In 2000, after years of selling cheese across Oregon, Froylan died.
A few years later, the family made their father’s dream a reality, opening Don Froylan Creamery. They now make fourteen styles of Mexican cheese and even sell them in California.
“My husband’s American Dream had come to reality,” Lisa said. “He got to plan and build from the ground up, literally drains and everything, exactly how he’d want to be.”
‘I’m representing my country and Mexican culture’
Once the curds are ready, it’s time for the cheesemakers to start hand stretching Oaxacan cheese.
“Hand pulling the cheese gives it a texture like no other,” Lisa said, watching the cheesemakers. “It’s something the machines just can’t do. They can’t replicate.”
The process of making Oaxacan cheese is like ballet: there’s a rhythm to it.
“It’s just a beautiful dance between two people, stretching the curds into long ribbons of queso Oaxaca,” Lisa said.
The cheesemakers hold 100 pounds of cheese in their hands and stretch it for a little over twenty minutes for each batch. Once it’s thin enough, the cheese goes into a cooling bath to stop the stretching process for a bit.
Naomi San Augustin, who has been a cheesemaker for about four years, said her favorite part of the process is rolling the cheese.
“I’m representing my country and Mexican culture,” San Augustin said in Spanish.
After the cheese goes into a cooling bath, the cheesemakers lay the Oaxacan cheese out on a table, salt it and make it into traditional Oaxacan balls.
Ochoa grabs one ball and throws it around like a football.
“It feels really good that I have a great team of cheesemakers that can make the cheese as good as I would,” Ochoa said. “They really take pride in making the cheese. That’s how the cheese turns out perfect, having a happy cheesemaker.”
‘Oregon is a home for many cheesemakers’
“For me, it’s seeing people with a big smile when they try our cheese,” Francisco Ochoa said. “When they have the taste, they’re like, ‘wow, it brought me back to my childhood,’
Stephani Gordon / OPB
By midday, Francisco and Lisa Ochoa make their way to the front of their creamery, which serves as a quesadilla bar.
Their storefront is filled with Mexican goods and photos of Froylan.
“Sometimes people didn’t have the five dollars for the one-pound queso fresco,” Lisa said, looking at photos of Froylan, whose smile in pictures on the wall was so big his eyes would close.
She remembered him saying, ‘It’s okay, no, it’s for the family. Next time, pay me when you can.’
“It was really just spreading cheese to the world and to families,” she said. “And that’s one thing I would really want people to know about why the name Froylan was so important in the business because of his generosity and his kindness.”
Don Froylan Creamery in Salem, Ore., has a quesadilla bar. The storefront is filled with Mexican goods and food.
Stephani Gordon / OPB
Ochoa and his family know how hard the barriers to starting a business can be, so Don Froylan Creamery is paying it forward by sharing its production facility with smaller cheese businesses, especially cheesemakers from different cultures.
“Oregon is a home for many cheesemakers,” Ochoa said. “That’s the future of Oregon – and the cheese industry – is creating a diversity of cheese.”
After helping make his father’s dream come true, Ochoa said his favorite part is still seeing people light up when they have Mexican cheese.
“For me, it’s seeing people with a big smile when they try our cheese,” he said. “When they have the taste, they’re like, ‘wow, it brought me back to my childhood,’
“When people smile, it makes me happy.”
This story is part of a bigger project about how cheese has shaped Oregon. OPB’s Superabundant will have a documentary coming soon.
