Cheese maker finds niche in Hermon

HERMON – In the three months since she moved her business from Millinocket to Hermon, Carla Portwine has added 10 wholesale accounts and increased cheese production by 25 percent, she said Friday.

“I had a good client base in Millinocket, but I would say here it’s increased by 50 percent,” Portwine said. “I am meeting all kinds of nice people and it’s picked up so much. It’s really working out well.”

Portwine of Maine closed its gift shop in downtown Millinocket on Aug. 30 and relocated to Morgan Hill Event Center in Hermon, taking its five employees with it.

Just outside Bangor, the event center is in an area much larger than Millinocket or the Katahdin region and hosts everything from bridal showers to bar mitzvahs – a perfect location for her gift-basket business and gift shop, Portwine said.

Portwine’s move put her closer to the southern half of the state, where she spends much time handling and cultivating clients for her food products line. The company sells her cheeses, chocolates and granola bars as well as Maine-made wines, dishware, artwork and photography, gift boxes filled with venison sausage, sparkling cider, maple syrup, white granola, granola with cherries and bottles of red and white wines.

Portwine had become something of a local business folk hero in Millinocket for the relentless work ethic and promotional instincts she displayed after starting the business when her ailing husband, Peter, lost his job at the failing Great Northern Paper Co. in 2002.

Yet the move to Hermon made business sense and has been rewarding, Portwine’s son Brandon said. The company’s cheese production increase — it now makes about 350 eight-ounce containers of cheese spread weekly – means it likely will have to hire more workers or increase its automation. He would prefer the latter at this point, and is looking for machinery that would help, Brandon Portwine said.

“People are starting to recognize us. I really think it takes like 10 years to be well-known and trusted enough to have a name,” Brandon Portwine said. “We’re getting there.”

But the Portwines still miss Millinocket.

“I miss the customers, the locals, and I am trying to figure out something where we could have a Millinocket day and have everything here and bring people down from Millinocket to see us,” Carla Portwine said.