Jason Frye, his brothers, Todd and Chad, and their father, Ralph, have made the most of government programs while exploring a new niche in the region’s cheese-making industry.

The Fryes offer pickup of online orders during limited times at the family’s dairy farm in Unity.

“We’ve sold out of our products every weekend,” Jason Frye said. “We figured we’d have 20 or 30 cars on a weekend, but we’re getting 20 or 30 cars in an hour.”

On Friday, as part of the Pennsylvania Veteran Farming Project, the Fryes welcomed a dozen veterans to see how they have made cheese the new focus of their operation. The veterans also learned from guest speakers about financial resources they can explore while starting or growing their own small agribusiness ventures.

Jason Frye noted his family began processing its first cheese in early April, amid the covid-19 pandemic.

They had to convert planned school tours of their new facility to virtual visits, but it’s been all they can do to keep up with the demand for their uncommon products — flavored cheese curds, which can be snacked on like string cheese, and quark cheese, which can be spread on bagels or made into cheesecake.

Some dairy farms have dumped milk because the normal markets for their product dwindled during pandemic restrictions.

That hasn’t been a problem at the Fryes’ Pleasant Lane Farms, where the milk from more than 40 cows is sold to Turner Dairy when not used for the family’s cheese.

They sell some of their products at farmers markets and through local retailers, as well as on the farm.

Todd Frye, an Air Force veteran and sergeant first class in the Army National Guard, is in charge of the farm’s 30-hive apiary. The family uses much of the honey produced there to flavor specialty cheeses.

“We have people driving big distances to get the quark cheese,” Jason Frye said. “We’re barely getting our aged cheeses into our aging room. We’re sort of trading the demand today for some of the stuff that’s going to be happening tomorrow.”

The Fryes started their cheese-making facility with the help of nearly $350,000 in grants from the Pennsylvania Dairy Investment Program. Jason Frye said their plans to offer tours and educational programs such as Friday’s workshop were an important factor in capturing that funding.

Just as important is their agreement to process cheese for at least three other small dairy operations. That move will be helped with the planned addition of a second cheese-making vat, supported by an additional state grant of about $90,000. The family is looking for private financing to add a robotic milking system.

Marine Corps veteran and Gibsonia resident Devin Winklosky attended the workshop to learn about federal programs that might help as he partners with his sister and brother-in-law, Mary and Sam Stoner, to pursue new options on their former dairy farm in Unity.

In addition to growing soybeans and corn, this year they started a 2-acre hops yard with 1,450 of the perennial plants.

Winklosky, who works for a Pittsburgh law firm, said they hope to supply hops to the region’s burgeoning craft breweries, offering a local alternative to plants shipped from major growers in the country’s Northwest.

“So far, so good,” he said. “We’ll see over the next couple of years how it goes. The plants take about three years to get to full production.”

Robert Mowery, a Navy veteran who works in cyber­security and is raising a family on a 25-acre farm in Moon Township, expressed interest in Kiva, an online platform for obtaining crowd-funded small-business loans. He thought such a loan might help him convert a trailer to use as a tow-behind cooler when transporting Pleasant Lane products that he resells or when picking up meat he has had processed from the pigs, lambs and chickens he raises.

Mowery has started an apiary where he invites fellow veterans to learn skills from seasoned beekeepers. He also grows pumpkins and sunflowers and is interested in exploring aquaponics — a water-based system that uses waste from fish to fertilize plants.

“We’re trying to find the right mix,” Mowery said of the farm. “We want to stay diversified.”

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