Cowgirl Creamery the latest local food company sold

What a ride it has been for Sonoma County food and wine businesses.

They start locally, build for a few years, and then sell for millions. How long can this profitable trend last, and what does this mean for our regional character, if anything?

Sonoma Cheese Factory sold part of itself for a while to a Korean company, the Viviani family keeping the Sonoma store. Joel Peterson sold his big cult Ravenswood Winery to Constellation Brands but has stayed on to wield his taste, touch and influence.

Laura Chenel sold her Sonoma goat-cheese-making operation to the Rians Group of France, as did Marin French Cheese (Rouge et Noir) west of Novato. Rians closed the slightly funky Chèvre factory at the old Stornetta’s Dairy at Napa Road and Highway 121 and built a state-of-the-art LEED certified plant on Eighth Street East.

Sam Sebastiani’s children sold Viansa Winery & Italian Market Place that he and former wife Vicki started after he sold the Sebastiani Theatre. Viansa has been through several owners since and now is in the hands of Vintage Wine Estates, which also bought B.R. Cohn, Clos Pegase and eight other wineries.

Having previously sold their Glen Ellen label to Heublein in 1994, the Benzigers recently sold Benziger Family Winery and Imagery Estate Winery to the Wine Group, which also owns Franzia, Almaden, and Corbett Canyon wineries.

Recently Patz & Hall sold to Chateau St. Michelle in Woodinville, Washington, which is owned by the Altria tobacco company. France’s Pernod Ricard purchased Kenwood Vineyards from Korbel, and also owns Absolut, Beefeater and Mumm Napa.

So the recent sale by Cowgirl Creamery founders Sue Conley and Peggy Smith wouldn’t be surprising given the trend that other early women founders of the North Coast artisanal cheese industry had also sold to bigger companies.

Sue Conley, who had been co-founder of Betty’s Ocean View Diner in Berkeley, and Peggy Smith, onetime chef at Chez Panisse, pooled their resources years ago to buy a barn in Pt. Reyes Station, made a few very special cheeses, learned to market them, and built businesses, including Tomales Bay Foods.

Cowgirl was sold recently to Emmi, a Swiss cheese company that also bought Mary Keehn’s Cypress Grove Chèvre (Humboldt Fog) in 2010, and Jennifer Bice’s Redwood Hill this year. These are women who started their herds outside their bedrooms and living rooms and nursed their animals along to make great cheeses, or bought organic milk.

At least for the near future, Bice and her brother will still oversee Redwood Hill Farm, Keehn is still at Cypress Grove, Smith will become president of Cowgirl Creamery with Conley as vice president (basically the way they were operating anyway), and Laura Chenel dedicates her life to saving animals.

After all, what would you do if someone offered you millions for the business you created and love?