Great American Cheese Collection

The Consumer Chef
"I The Chef"
Jan/Feb 2001

A Profile of Giles Schnierle

By Linda Rosner

I met Giles Schnierle, a self-taught chef, at an ACF Chicago Chefs Chapter meeting. He was offering tastings of his new dessert lines sold through Heartland Trading Company, his food distributorship. Schnierle's background differs from that of other mainstream chefs. Using his culinary knowledge from years of kitchen experience, Schnierle migrated to the "other side," if you will, and supplies chefs with specialty ingredients and great ideas.

In 1978 he started Giles Catering Company, geared toward the upper class. In the beginning he was truly the Jack-Of-All-Trades answering the door wearing a tuxedo, serving cocktails, running to the kitchen to don his white chef's coat to begin preparing the 4-6 course dinner. He had also designed the menu, worked with the client's special requests, shopped for the ingredients, set the table, and served each course. Hungry for new ideas and recipes, Giles was an avid reader of classic and contemporary cook books and cooking magazines like Gourmet, Bon Appetit, and Cuisine. His sensitive palate enabled him to create new dishes as well as improve old established recipes. As trends changed and larger, more elaborate buffet-style parties became the rage, Giles shifted gears to accommodate this new and growing market. With an expanded kitchen facility and an enlarged staff, he now set his sights on large social events and the corporate market. Giles Catering advanced to the ranks of The-Top-Ten Caterers in Chicago.

Having achieved considerable success in the catering field, Schnierle now directed his attention to the restaurant industry.

Steven Langlois ( one of Giles' former employees and a recent graduate of the CIA), was offered the Executive Chef position at the soon-to-open Prairie Restaurant on Dearborn Street in Chicago. Knowing that Schnierle was an excellent resource person with terrific organizational skills and a great network of contacts, Langlois offered him the opportunity to manage the new kitchen, develop recipes and train the staff. While with Prairie Restaurant, Schnierle saw the growing difficulties that this and other restaurants of the Chicago Dining Authority Group were having procuring the basic and specialty items necessary to their menus. He quickly designed a buying program that would give WA control of the products needed for each restaurant and enabling the Group to achieve considerable savings. The premature demise of CDA caused Schnierle to venture out into the market on his own with his distribution idea and thus was born Heartland Trading Company. Beginning with pates and pastries, he soon added other unique products that had special appeal to fine dining and gourmet retail venues. In 1993 Schnierle began his mission to introduce artisanal American cheeses to Chicago. Gradually he built a market for these boutique American cheeses and today over 175 cheeses from more than thirty independent specialty producers are sold under his new banner of "The Great American Cheese Collection."

With domestic milk prices down, foreign cheese subsidies on the decrease, and tariffs on the rise, the American specialty cheese industry has great opportunity to develop its niche. As with the wine industry of ten years ago, artisanal cheeses are now meeting with enthusiastic acceptance. They are finding homes in top restaurants nation-wide where chefs, including Ted Cisma of Grace Restaurant in Chicago, consider them to be superior to much of what is imported.

In an effort to prevent preconceived notions from ruling ones' taste buds, renowned Chef Alain Ducasse presents American artisanal cheeses on the same cart as imports, all without identification. To his delight, diners raved about and preferred American specialty cheeses over the imports.

Where is all this going? Schnierle thinks that we're experiencing the very beginning of a golden decade of specialty cheese production in this country. Master cheese maker Sid Cook from Carr Valley is experimenting with blended milk cheeses, Randy Krahenbuhl of Prima Kase has won an impressive number of US and World Championships for his Swiss and Gouda, and more goat and sheep milk cheeses are now being produced than ever before. All of this adds up to higher quality and greater variety for the consumer, increased profits for the producers, and is proof positive of great changes in America's cheese industry.

Schnierle has presented many of the products from The Great American Cheese Collection at prestigious seminars at the Illinois Institute of Culinary Art, the Union League Club of Chicago, C.H.I.C., Kendall College and regional trade shows.

For more information and to sample these exciting new cheeses contact Giles Schnierle at Hearttrade@aol.com.