Most American creameries look to France or England for their recipes. Boxcarr Handmade Cheese looks to the small farmhouse dairies of northern Italy. On a hillside farm in Cedar Grove, North Carolina, a brother and sister make soft, square robiolas that change with the seasons, because their goats do. In July 2026, two of those squares took first place at the American Cheese Society competition, and one of them shared the top spot with Vermont’s Jasper Hill Farm. Here’s how a food truck, a goat herd and an Italian family table led there.
A Food Truck, a Goat Herd, and a Creamery on the Ridge
Boxcarr began as a farm, not a cheese company. Siblings Samantha and Austin Genke, together with Austin’s wife, Dani, established Boxcarr Farms in 2009. According to The Cheese Professor, the name pulls together three things: the farm’s address on Carr Store Road, a children’s book series, and the old shipping crates on the property.
For years, the family farmed first and made cheese later. They grew heirloom vegetables, raised dairy goats, heritage pigs and pasture-raised poultry, and sold what they made at farmers markets, through a CSA, and off a gourmet food truck. Austin, a culinary-school-trained chef who had cooked in Las Vegas kitchens, ran the catering side.
Samantha brought the cheese know-how. Before Boxcarr, she cared for goats and helped make cheese at Goat Lady Dairy, then spent nine and a half years as a cheesemaker at Chapel Hill Creamery, according to Carolina Country. Her first experiments for Boxcarr happened in that old food truck, Edible Piedmont reports.
In 2014, the family built a 2,900-square-foot creamery at the top of the ridge, overlooking the farm pond. The first batch of cheese came out of it in April 2015. That October, Cottonseed won Best of Show at the North Carolina State Fair. Boxcarr had been making cheese for about six months.
Robiola Is the Family Language
The Genkes’ Italian roots run through their mother’s side of the family, and they shape almost everything in the cheese room. Instead of cheddars or Alpine wheels, Boxcarr makes small, soft cheeses modeled on Italian classics. The main one is Robiola, a fresh-to-soft cheese from Piedmont and Lombardy that’s usually sold in small squares or rounds and eaten young. They also make Lissome, a beer-washed cheese inspired by Taleggio. Cottonseed is modeled on Scimudin, a soft, bloomy cheese from Lombardy’s Alpine valleys.
The Italian influence isn’t only in the recipes. The Cheese Professor reports that Boxcarr uses Italian starter cultures, the bacteria that turn milk into cheese, which the family obtained through a friendship that began on an American goat farm. Blending cow’s and goat’s milk in one vat, as Boxcarr does with Cottonseed, is also an old habit of northern Italian farmhouse dairies.
Austin sums up the philosophy simply. “Cheese is pretty simple,” he told Carolina Country, “good quality milk, cultures and salt.” That only works if the milk is very good.
When the Goats Rest, Cottonseed Becomes Cottonbell
Boxcarr’s goat milk comes from its own herd, a cross of Alpine and Nubian breeds. Its cow’s milk comes from a few small family dairies nearby, including Jersey milk from a neighboring farm. Jersey cows give rich, high-butterfat milk, and that’s a big part of why Boxcarr’s soft cheeses taste so buttery.
Here’s where the seasons come in. Goats naturally stop producing milk for part of the year, before they have their kids. Cottonseed, the cheese that made Boxcarr’s name, is a blend of cow’s and goat’s milk, so it’s usually available only from about May to mid-January. When the goat milk runs out in the fall, Boxcarr makes a version from cow’s milk alone. That cheese is Cottonbell, and it won first place this year.
So the two cheeses are siblings, separated by the calendar. Cottonseed carries the bright, slightly mineral tang of goat’s milk. Cottonbell is mellower, with what Boxcarr calls “gentle salinity and woodsy warmth.” “The milk is always changing,” Samantha told Carolina Country. That’s terroir in its most practical form: the cheese follows the animals, and the animals follow the seasons. We explore the idea further in Every Cheese Wheel Has a Story Behind It.
The goats leave their mark in other ways too. Rocket’s Robiola, an ash-dusted cow’s milk square, is named after Mama Rocket, one of the farm’s goats, as Charlotte Magazine has noted.
A Small Creamery That Stays Close to Home
Boxcarr is still a family business. Samantha leads the cheesemaking. Austin handles sales and deliveries, hauls milk, and fixes whatever breaks. Their father, Paul, who spent his career in the citrus business, helps with sales and marketing. The next generation of Genke kids is already around the farm.
The cheese now travels far. Boxcarr sells to shops and restaurants across the country, and Food & Wine has included it among its top U.S. cheesemakers, according to The Cheese Professor. Still, much of its business remains local. The team also sells at farmers markets around the Triangle, including the Durham Farmers’ Market. The farm also runs its own online shop. Orders placed by Monday morning ship on Tuesday by one- or two-day UPS or FedEx, with shipping included in the price, and there’s also a three-month cheese subscription.
The community side matters to them. When COVID-19 shut down restaurant sales in 2020, the animals kept producing milk. Rather than dump it, Boxcarr turned it into cheese and donated nearly 1,000 pounds a week to local groups feeding people. That effort became a permanent cheese, a melty cow’s milk square called Supporting Our Farmers’.
Two Firsts in Louisville and a Bronze in Madison
The 2026 American Cheese Society Judging & Competition drew close to 1,600 entries, all judged blind. Boxcarr placed three cheeses, according to the official ACS 2026 winner list.
Cottonbell took first place among Brie and Camembert-style cow’s milk cheeses weighing 8 ounces or more. It shared first place with Moses Sleeper from Jasper Hill Farm, one of the most respected creameries in the country. Rocket’s Robiola won first place in a category for soft-ripened cheeses whose rind is made only with Geotrichum, a yeast-like mold that forms a thin, wrinkly, slightly velvety skin. Cottonseed placed third among soft-ripened cheeses made from mixed milks, the same result it earned at ACS in 2016 and 2018.
Cottonbell also won a bronze in the Brie class at the 2026 World Championship Cheese Contest in Madison, Wisconsin, a competition with more than 3,300 entries from around the world. The 2026 results add to a list that, according to Boxcarr, already includes Good Food Awards for Cottonseed, Rocket’s Robiola, Campo, Winsome and Doeling. To see how ribbons like these affect a small business, read What Winning a Cheese Award Really Does for a Small Creamery.
How to Enjoy Boxcarr’s Robiolas at Home
Robiolas change a lot as they age, so timing is part of the fun. A young Rocket’s Robiola is tangy and a little chalky, with a firm center. Give it a few more weeks and it softens from the rind inward, until the center is buttery and nearly spreadable, with notes of mushroom and toasted nut. These are short-lived cheeses, ripe within a couple of months, so don’t save them for a special occasion. Buy one and eat it within a few weeks.
Take the cheese out of the fridge about an hour before serving. All three award winners have soft, edible rinds, and the rind is part of the flavor. If you’re unsure about a rind, our guide Cheese Rinds: To Eat or Not to Eat? explains it.
For pairings, start with Boxcarr’s own suggestions. Rocket’s Robiola pairs well with roasted mushrooms, figs, warm baguette and a dry rosé. Cottonbell likes chutney, roasted vegetables, almonds and a glass of Chardonnay. Cottonseed is lovely with sautéed mushrooms and Prosecco, whose bubbles cut through the cream. If you prefer beer, Cheese Grotto suggests a brown ale with Rocket’s Robiola. Our complete guide to cheese and wine pairing has more ideas.
Store leftovers in cheese paper or wax paper, not plastic wrap, so the rind can breathe. Our guide on how to store cheese properly at home explains why. You can find Boxcarr cheese at specialty shops and co-ops, at its farmers market stands, and through the Boxcarr Handmade Cheese online shop. To see how Boxcarr fits into the wider map of American cheese, explore our regional guide to American artisan cheese.
Where Italy Meets the Carolina Piedmont
Boxcarr’s story shows that a family’s history can become a style of cheese. The family brought Italian recipes to the Carolina Piedmont, learned the craft at the state’s best creameries, and let a herd of goats set the calendar. Eleven years after their first batch, the Genkes share a first-place ribbon with Jasper Hill, and they still sell their cheese face to face at the farmers market.
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