Two brothers, two engineering degrees and a love of cheese. This may not be the typical recipe for launching a cheese shop, but for Andrew and Jonah Benton – owners of Benton Brothers Fine Cheese – it has produced wonderful results.
After university, the brothers each took their own path leading away from engineering and into the culinary world, with both ending up in the cheese industry. In 2007, the new owner of Forrester’s Fine Cheese in Kerrisdale asked Jonah to provide consultancy services; instead, Jonah and Andrew teamed up to make an offer and bought the business, putting their own stamp on it with a new name.
“Things went pretty well for us right off the bat. We already had customers because it was an existing store, but we changed things quite a bit and brought in a lot of new products,” Jonah explains .
With many years of combined experience in cheese retail and wholesale, the brothers had a clear and simple vision for their business from the start: to help Vancouverites savour real cheese, in all its salty, earthy, pungent glory.
