Village Squire, 1975-04, Page 17For
Frank Leslie
there's
quality
in the aging
It's hard to know what is more interesting
when, you visit the Cheese House in Stratford
on Erie Street: the business itself 9r the man
who runs it.
Like the cheese he sells, Frank Leslie has
aged well. How many men who have passed
their 70th birthday would be building large
additions to their businesses? How many men
of any age could walk out in the back shop of
their business and capably do any job that's
going? How many men his age would set a
pace that keeps men half his age running to
keep up?
The Cheese House has been a favourite
shopping place for area people for many years
now. There you can get just about any kind of
cheese made in Canada and many that are
imported as well.
Though the big counter with the wide
variety of cheeses is what most people see,
it's actually only a small portion of the overall
business of Perth Cheese Company. The
company today is the result of a lifetime of
experience in the cheese business for Mr.
Leslie. He began in 1924 as an apprentice and
worked in many cheese factories mostly in
Oxford County. He became involved in the
cheese wholesaling business in Woodstock,
then moved to Stratford where he bought an
old cold -storage locker servic' on Erie Street
and moved into cheese wholesaling.
In 1952 he made an arrangement with
Wesley Krotz of the Millbank plant to
wholesale the Millbank factory's product. It's
proved a good move for both men.
Last fall he opened a large new addition to
the rear of the building which greatly
streamlined the whole operation so that now
some 12,000 pounds of cheese can be cut and
wrapped in a day.
Mr. Leslie buys his cheese directly from the
cheese factories such as the Millbank plant
and the Chu plant in Milverton. Fie has his
own storage roomy where till' c heese i; aged
Frank Leslie measures a large block of cheese in his Cheese House before cutting and packaging
for delivery to a local store.
A worker in the Cheese House cutting room puts customer -size pieces of cheese in the machinc
whi:li will shrink wrap and weigh them.
VILLAGE SQUIRE/APRIL 1975, 15