THE EVER-SO-PETITE sweet Greek yogurt jars from Argyle Cheese Farmer are redefining grocery store Greek. Hand-crafted at the Randles’ family dairy farm that dates back to the 1860s, the New York State Fair award-winning whole-milk yogurt is what a small-batch, creamy and traditional Greek yogurt should be. “Commercial Greek yogurts typically can’t be made with whole, unhomogenized milk—it clogs up the machinery,” yogurt maker Marge Randles notes. “Ours is made by hand, just as the Greeks intended.”
Offered in a variety of flavors (including strawberry rhubarb, blueberry, maple, raspberry, honey and chocolate mousse), Argyle Cheese Farmer yogurts are packaged in recyclable 4.35-ounce glass jars that Randles discovered at a farmers’ market eight years ago. After finally tracking them down at a French glass company, the jars have become an undeniably cute signature. “The glass packaging is something that sets us apart, and when people see and taste it for the first time, they remember it,” Randles says.
While the sweet Greek yogurt is a staple at upper Hudson Valley farmers’ markets and at Whole Foods (Albany), it and the company’s cheeses, regular yogurts and cheese spreads are making their way down to the mid-Hudson Valley (most recently to Adams Fairacre Farms, in Kingston). Argyle Cheese Farmer products can also be ordered online (where the yogurt retails for $2.50 each).