Godfather of Mexican Cheese

MIGUEL LEAL is widely regarded as the “Godfather of Mexican Cheese” in the United States. Miguel’s story humbly began at a cheese factory in his native Mexico as a teenager. When he was invited to travel to the United States as an apprentice, he jumped at the chance. One of six children raised in poverty after the tragic death of his father in an earthquake, Miguel arrived in Wisconsin without money and speaking little English. As an illegal immigrant, he had no choice but to make a cardboard bed on the factory’s boiler room floor. Despite these challenges—through grit, persistence, and hard work— Miguel Leal observed and learned every step of cheesemaking, from cleaning the equipment to cutting and packaging cheese for sale. He was among the first to recognize that the growing number of Latinx immigrants in the U.S. meant there would be a market for specialty Mexican cheeses, and eventually partnered with a master cheesemaker from Wisconsin to work with the Amish in Ohio to produce and hand-sell 60-pound wheels of cotija cheese in the Chicago metro area. The skyrocketing demand for his cheese led Leal to establish his own company, Mexican Cheese Producers, Inc. in 1994. He eventually constructed a state-of- the-art production plant in Darlington, Wisconsin—a prime location with access to the finest quality milk in the country. There, he continued to perfect recipes for a variety of Mexican cheeses and took out patents for the machines used to produce them. Leal eventually sold his business for $50mil to the global company Sigma Alimentos, which still uses his recipes and won the 2020 World Championship Cheese Contest with their flagship cotija cheese. Today, Miguel is a successful real estate developer with a deep investment in his new passion project: supporting Mexico’s growing organic foods movement with a farm of his own, where he demonstrates sustainable, organic farming methods to communities in his native country while supporting local charitable efforts. He is also keenly interested in developing a national dog breed for Mexico related to the Argentinian Dogo, a hunting dog suited to being a loyal pet and guard dog.

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