Goat cheese has spent years stuck in the "special occasion" corner of the menu—the salad crumble, the fancy pizza upsell, the cheese board flourish. LaClare Creamery wants to change that math, and it's using National Goat Cheese Month to make its case.
The Malone, Wisconsin-based creamery is celebrating August's National Goat Cheese Month with a sweepstakes offering one winner a full year's supply of LaClare goat cheese—52 cheeses in all, delivered in quarterly shipments. The National Goat Cheese Month Sweepstakes entry window opens August 3 and closes August 31, 2026.
Inside the Giveaway
The prize is engineered to encourage exploration rather than a one-time splurge. The winner receives a new cheese to try each week, with product arriving in convenient quarterly shipments—no extra grocery run required.
To enter, participants complete an online form with their name, home state, phone number, and email. Bonus entries are available for following LaClare Creamery on Facebook and @laclarecreamery on Instagram. Full details live at the creamery's sweepstakes page.
The Real Message: Versatility
Strip away the giveaway mechanics and the campaign is a positioning play. LaClare is arguing that goat cheese isn't a niche garnish—it's a drop-in substitute for the cheeses operators and home cooks already reach for daily.
"Goat cheese is incredibly versatile—you can use it in place of any cheese in a recipe," said Patrick Considine, national sales director at LaClare Creamery. "Instead of cream cheese, pick any one of our fresh chèvres and spread it on a bagel. Or in lieu of a simple shredded cheddar, a Truffle or Chipotle Honey goat cheese can elevate an omelet like you wouldn't believe! Salads, pasta, pizza, sandwiches, casseroles—anything you can imagine, sweet or savory, can be taken to a whole new level with goat cheese. That's why we always do a year's supply giveaway during National Goat Cheese Month. The winner of our Sweepstakes has a chance to get experimental and discover just how versatile goat cheese can be."
The lineup backs up the pitch, spanning creamy, spreadable chèvre through flavorful hard varieties, with flavored options like Truffle and Chipotle Honey. Recipe inspiration is available at laclarefamilycreamery.com/recipes.
A Purple Play for Flavor-Forward Buyers
LaClare's recently launched Ube Goat Cheese is the standout on-trend example. Traditionally a staple in Filipino dishes, ube lends sweet, earthy notes and a vibrant purple hue to LaClare's signature tangy, creamy chèvre—reminiscent of classic Filipino desserts like ube halaya and ube ice cream. It's a direct nod to the global-flavor and dessert-forward curiosity driving specialty dairy right now.
Why It Matters
For operators and buyers, this is less about the sweepstakes and more about a reframe worth studying. LaClare is positioning a premium specialty ingredient as an everyday, all-purpose one—and that's exactly the lever that grows volume in a category often boxed in by "occasional use."
- Menu math: If goat cheese can sub for cream cheese, cheddar, or a board component across breakfast, lunch, and dinner, it earns cross-utilization—one SKU pulling weight in multiple dayparts and lowering inventory complexity.
- Domestic sourcing angle: LaClare touts being one of the few 100% domestically produced goat cheese brands with its own direct milk supply—a supply-chain and provenance story that resonates with local-sourcing-minded procurement directors and menu storytelling alike.
- Flavor innovation as traffic: Products like Ube and Chipotle Honey give menu developers a built-in reason to feature limited-time specials and capture the global-flavor demand that skews younger and social-media-savvy.
- Marketing playbook: Anchoring a promotion to a food "holiday," gating bonus entries behind social follows, and dangling a high-perceived-value prize is a low-cost, high-engagement template any brand or restaurant group can adapt.
The practical takeaway: whether you're a chef building a spring menu or a buyer weighing a specialty line, the winning question isn't "where does goat cheese fit?" but "where doesn't it?"
Chasing more flavor-innovation moves like this? See how McCormick extended its Black Currant "Flavor of the Year" through brand collaborations, and how Bush's Beans turned comfort food into a viral limited drop.
Would you put goat cheese on your everyday menu—or is it still a special-occasion ingredient in your kitchen? Weigh in with a comment.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine’s “Top 40 Under 40” for founding American Wholesale Floral. Politz is also the founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
