(Host) A small specialty cheese manufacturer, using milk from water buffalo, started with great promise five years ago. But it was forced to close last month when investors declined to put up more money.

As VPR's Ross Sneyd reports, the company was sold this week, and the new owner promises to help expand markets for his and other artisan cheese makers' companies.

(Sneyd) Water buffalo are hardly common sights on Vermont farms. But their high butterfat milk is just what you need for mozzarella cheese.

The Woodstock Water Buffalo Company set up shop in 2002 expanded quickly, selling cheese and yogurt nationally. But coast-to-coast distribution is expensive, and investors pulled out when more money was needed.

Enter Frank Abballe. He's a Toronto businessman, who grew up in Italy, where fresh mozzarella is a foundation of the local diet.

Sales director Carey Clifford says Abballe plans to narrow the focus of the renamed Vermont Water Buffalo Company.

(Clifford) ``Our objective is to grow locally first and then expand to the Northeast. So, really we'll be focusing in the beginning on Vermont, New Hampshire and then reaching out to probably Boston, New York and other areas in the Northeast.''

(Sneyd) Some artisan cheese makers cringed when the buffalo company closed.

They say their small industry is strong and growing and they didn't want the failure of a nontraditional company to reflect on them.

Ellen Ogden, author of ``Vermont Cheese'' and coordinator of the Vermont Cheese Council, says 38 farms are making 150 types of cheese.

She says most of them are thriving because they've taken the approach Vermont Water Buffalo's new owner plans to pursue.

(Ogden) ``Growth happens gradually. It's not like a widget you can pull off the shelf. It happens gradually and naturally and evolves. I feel confident that most of our cheesemakers are not going to grow faster than they know they can.''

(Sneyd) Vermont Water Buffalo does plan to diversify. It will begin selling meat along with its mozzarella and yogurt. And it wants to work with other specialty cheesemakers to produce some new cheese types using buffalo milk.

Catherine Donnelly, who is co-director of the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese at the University of Vermont, says that's good for the entire industry.

(Donnelly) ``Having distribution networks, having trucks that willing to make the drive from farm to farm, the more players in this business, the more efficiently those trucks can operate. ... If a thriving Woodstock Water Buffalo then enables someone to maintain a distribution route, that helps everybody who is a neighboring cheesemaker.''

(Sneyd) The Vermont Agriculture Agency agrees with that analysis. Beyond saving farms, it also preserves jobs. The Vermont Water Buffalo Company has ten employees now and hopes to hire 30 more in the next three years.

For VPR News, I'm Ross Sneyd.