Who Moved My Cheese?
Reflections by Brother Luke
Back in my government days, restructuring the bureaucracy was seemingly an unending activity. I suspect nothing has changed in that regard. Not only did elections followed by new federal administrations bring in new political appointees with new ideas about how to do practically everything, but in the world of the defense establishment and the military (where I worked), changes in leadership according to the usual rotational requirements of career advancements kept us constantly facing reorganization, downsizing, personnel transfers, and general uncertainly about job security. Spencer Johnson’s book Who Moved My Cheese? was all the rage in the 1990s. Now you can get it for 1¢ online (+ shipping, of course). It is in the same category as the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Both books deal with change and how to cope with it, or rather, how to turn what seems negative into something positive.
During our years of transition at New Skete, we struggled with many changes in our community life. We needed to make decisions around our work, our prayer life, community governance, finance, interpersonal relations, and health, to name just a few. To help us manage this process better, we turned to a good Franciscan friend for assistance. He was trained as a psychotherapist and spiritual director, and he also was qualified to give the 7 Habits course to religious. We had discovered that we faced an avalanche of decisions with little experience as a community in making decisions. This course gave us new tools to revamp our decision-making process. Of course, it didn’t mean that, henceforth, everything would go smoothly.
As we entered the new millennium, the monks’ community faced major decisions around our business activities. We had over the years acquired an international reputation for our dog-training program and for breeding purebred German Shepherd dogs. On a more regional basis, we also were known for a variety of smoked food products, including Italian hot and sweet sausages; breakfast sausages; smoked chicken, turkey, and duck; and a variety of cheeses. Our smoked cheeses caught the attention of a cheese producer in northern Vermont, and we began to smoke their cheddar cheese, too. However, in the food business, we faced the reality that competition from major producers made it increasingly difficult for small producers to survive. We also had to deal with the reality of our community shrinking and aging. How much of this work could we continue to sustain? If we cut out some of our income-producing work, could we survive financially?
By 2001 we had already begun to shift away from some of our food products. We stopped making sausages, but we added a new work, producing dog biscuits. This business was begun earlier by the New Skete Companions, but they could no longer manage it, so we took it up thinking it might be more manageable and better able to replace the income from the discontinued food product lines. After several years we realized that we could not grow the dog biscuit business using our small hand-made operation. Even though we had purchased some equipment to help, it was labor intensive, and we were spread too thin. So, Brother Elias, then President of New Skete Farms, began to search for a company that might produce the dog biscuits for us. He found such a company, and we reached an agreement with them to produce the biscuits for us. Since they had to use their mass production equipment, we had to make some adjustments to the recipe. We also ended up dropping our wheat-free biscuit. Over several years, efforts to grow the business proved unsuccessful, so ultimately the company decided they too had to cut their losses and discontinue producing the treats. By this time we had sold all our biscuit-making equipment, including the large oven we had purchased for this work, so we knew we could not go back to baking those biscuits ourselves. We searched for a new producer and found one in the Midwest. We reintroduced our old recipe, and we continue to sell our original biscuits today. We can’t live on dog biscuit sales, but it is nice to know that a product created by Brother Elias, and developed and originally baked and sold by the New Skete Companions, is still with us.
The rest of our food products, also created by Brother Elias, did not fare as well. After engaging the Zielinski Company to help us with strategic planning, we continued with our food production to see if any of it could turn a profit. The financial analysis after that experiment revealed the sad reality that we simply could not compete by producing any of these foods. When we noticed that our entire profit in all our food products could be matched by the sale of one puppy, we threw in the towel. The Nuns of New Skete were able to take over some of the cheese spread flavors and produce them with their cheesecake equipment. But the rest, we had to let go.
One food-related work did survive: smoking cheese. But not our cheese! Our cheese smoking work for Shelburne Farms continues. This year we reached a new agreement with them to continue for another three to five years. This allowed us to build a modest new cheese smoking building to replace our old facility, which will be torn down as the new Dog Training Facility opens.
So, who moved our cheese? We did, literally. In the spring our next round of cheese smoking will take place in our new facility. We hope it will continue to serve both New Skete and the needs of Shelburne Farms for many years to come. Below are some photos of the cheese operation now, and the new building. Watch for updates in 2015!
Back in my government days, restructuring the bureaucracy was seemingly an unending activity. I suspect nothing has changed in that regard. Not only did elections followed by new federal administrations bring in new political appointees with new ideas about how to do practically everything, but in the world of the defense establishment and the military (where I worked), changes in leadership according to the usual rotational requirements of career advancements kept us constantly facing reorganization, downsizing, personnel transfers, and general uncertainly about job security. Spencer Johnson’s book Who Moved My Cheese? was all the rage in the 1990s. Now you can get it for 1¢ online (+ shipping, of course). It is in the same category as the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Both books deal with change and how to cope with it, or rather, how to turn what seems negative into something positive.
During our years of transition at New Skete, we struggled with many changes in our community life. We needed to make decisions around our work, our prayer life, community governance, finance, interpersonal relations, and health, to name just a few. To help us manage this process better, we turned to a good Franciscan friend for assistance. He was trained as a psychotherapist and spiritual director, and he also was qualified to give the 7 Habits course to religious. We had discovered that we faced an avalanche of decisions with little experience as a community in making decisions. This course gave us new tools to revamp our decision-making process. Of course, it didn’t mean that, henceforth, everything would go smoothly.
As we entered the new millennium, the monks’ community faced major decisions around our business activities. We had over the years acquired an international reputation for our dog-training program and for breeding purebred German Shepherd dogs. On a more regional basis, we also were known for a variety of smoked food products, including Italian hot and sweet sausages; breakfast sausages; smoked chicken, turkey, and duck; and a variety of cheeses. Our smoked cheeses caught the attention of a cheese producer in northern Vermont, and we began to smoke their cheddar cheese, too. However, in the food business, we faced the reality that competition from major producers made it increasingly difficult for small producers to survive. We also had to deal with the reality of our community shrinking and aging. How much of this work could we continue to sustain? If we cut out some of our income-producing work, could we survive financially?
By 2001 we had already begun to shift away from some of our food products. We stopped making sausages, but we added a new work, producing dog biscuits. This business was begun earlier by the New Skete Companions, but they could no longer manage it, so we took it up thinking it might be more manageable and better able to replace the income from the discontinued food product lines. After several years we realized that we could not grow the dog biscuit business using our small hand-made operation. Even though we had purchased some equipment to help, it was labor intensive, and we were spread too thin. So, Brother Elias, then President of New Skete Farms, began to search for a company that might produce the dog biscuits for us. He found such a company, and we reached an agreement with them to produce the biscuits for us. Since they had to use their mass production equipment, we had to make some adjustments to the recipe. We also ended up dropping our wheat-free biscuit. Over several years, efforts to grow the business proved unsuccessful, so ultimately the company decided they too had to cut their losses and discontinue producing the treats. By this time we had sold all our biscuit-making equipment, including the large oven we had purchased for this work, so we knew we could not go back to baking those biscuits ourselves. We searched for a new producer and found one in the Midwest. We reintroduced our old recipe, and we continue to sell our original biscuits today. We can’t live on dog biscuit sales, but it is nice to know that a product created by Brother Elias, and developed and originally baked and sold by the New Skete Companions, is still with us.
The rest of our food products, also created by Brother Elias, did not fare as well. After engaging the Zielinski Company to help us with strategic planning, we continued with our food production to see if any of it could turn a profit. The financial analysis after that experiment revealed the sad reality that we simply could not compete by producing any of these foods. When we noticed that our entire profit in all our food products could be matched by the sale of one puppy, we threw in the towel. The Nuns of New Skete were able to take over some of the cheese spread flavors and produce them with their cheesecake equipment. But the rest, we had to let go.
One food-related work did survive: smoking cheese. But not our cheese! Our cheese smoking work for Shelburne Farms continues. This year we reached a new agreement with them to continue for another three to five years. This allowed us to build a modest new cheese smoking building to replace our old facility, which will be torn down as the new Dog Training Facility opens.
So, who moved our cheese? We did, literally. In the spring our next round of cheese smoking will take place in our new facility. We hope it will continue to serve both New Skete and the needs of Shelburne Farms for many years to come. Below are some photos of the cheese operation now, and the new building. Watch for updates in 2015!
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| The cheese smoker |
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| Shelburne Farms Cheese |
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| The walk-in cooler |
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| The entrance |
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| The Cryovac food packaging machine |
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| The existing work area |
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| The new facility - early fall |
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| The new facility - November 19th |
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| Still much work needed to complete the new facility |
