This past summer, Consider Bardwell’s Goatlet catapulted to glory. For the third time in three years, it placed first in its category at the prestigious American Cheese Society judging. Four months later, the Vermont farm has ceased cheesemaking and its future is in doubt. A positive Listeria test in late September, every cheesemaker’s nightmare, led to a voluntary recall that could doom this 18-year-old enterprise. I didn’t really think co-owner Angela Miller would want to talk about this painful episode, but she surprised me. “I would very much like to help others by telling our story,” she said in an e-mail.

During routine testing, the creamery discovered Listeria monocytogenes in Slyboro, a washed-rind goat cheese made with raw milk from a new supplier. The company immediately “locked down” its washed-rind cave, says Miller, and issued a voluntary recall for all of its washed-rind cheeses: Slyboro, Dorset (made with raw cow’s milk) and Experience (made with pasteurized cow’s milk). None of the batch that tested positive was ever shipped, and no illnesses have been reported.

Cheesemakers routinely send milk samples to labs for testing, but it takes several days to get results. You can’t just sit on the milk while you wait for the outcome. So you make the cheese and then test the finished product for pathogens before shipping.

Consider Bardwell has its own goats but was also buying some goat milk from a new supplier, and that milk went into Slyboro. “I guess one lesson learned is to be incredibly careful with your supply chain,” says Miller. “We were testing every single batch of goat cheese that went out, but we were only testing (the new supplier’s) milk twice a month.”

Washed-rind cheeses like Slyboro and Dorset get brushed repeatedly with brine to flavor them. At Consider Bardwell, the staff was using the same brushes for different batches, which may have exacerbated the problem. “Lesson learned,” says Miller. “You have to change the brushes so you’re not spreading anything.”

The two small Vermont dairies that supplied cow’s milk to Consider Bardwell are now also in deep trouble, with few prospects for their milk. In a display of solidarity, three Vermont creameries—Grafton Village, Vermont Farmstead and Spring Brook Farm—took the milk for the first month after the recall. Now, lacking outlets, her former suppliers “are spreading the milk on the fields,” says Miller.

She has had to lay off most of her staff and is now facing the loss of all the cheese in the farm’s cellars, an inventory valued at $200,000. “We are destroying it,” she said. “It’s been sitting around uncared for and it’s degrading.”

The future is uncertain. Miller says she will milk her goats in the spring, when they resume lactation. She has had offers of financial help but not sufficient to open the doors again. “We want a second act,” she says. “We have all these fabulous recipes.”

What does Consider Bardwell’s experience signal for the future of raw-milk cheese production in the U.S.? Will it deter more cheesemakers or spur regulators to tighten laws?

“I would think twice about whether I would ever make a raw washed-rind cheese,” says Miller now. Cheeses like Slyboro are more hospitable to pathogens because they are high in moisture and not typically aged much longer than 60 days. For wheels matured more than 75 days, like Consider Bardwell’s Pawlet, Miller says she would still be comfortable using raw milk.

Goatlet, a blend of raw cow’s and goat’s milk, was never in the creamery’s washed-rind cave. It is produced in collaboration with Crown Finish Caves in Brooklyn, and although made at Consider Bardwell, it is not matured there. It is shipped young to Crown Finish Caves, where it is aged for four to six months. Crown Finish still has Goatlet wheels in inventory, all of which tested free of Listeria on entry and will be re-tested before release. To rescue some of the homeless cow’s milk, Grafton Village and Crown Finish Caves are collaborating on a new cheese called Smoke Signal, to be released in the spring.