Shep Ysselstein takes top honours as the 2014 BDC Young Entrepreneur for Gunn's Hill Artisan Cheese.
WOODSTOCK -- It's another feather in the cap of Shep Ysselstein and Gunn's Hill Artisan Cheese.
The BDC Young Entrepreneur Award winner was announced this morning and Shep received top honours across Canada after being selected to represent Ontario in the finals.
Shep will now receive $100,000 to help grow and expand his business. He says in the Fall, they will begin building new curing and aging rooms to meet their increasing demand and also create some new premium aged cheeses. "We've done a few steps to increase production, we're working on that right now. And as we increase production we're obviously going to need more space to actually store that additional cheese."
Shep plans to break ground on the expansion in the Fall and expects the construction to take roughly four months to complete. It's also his hopes to double their workforce with the new expansion.
Since his start three years ago, Shep went from being the sole employee to hiring three more staff. In the second full year of business, they saw their sales increase two-and-half times and his predicts at the finish of his third full year, they will increase by fifty percent.
Shep says he is extremely grateful for the support they continue to receive, especially during the recent voting process for the BDC award. "We're extremely appreciative of all the support that we've received. It's just been incredible, to hear all the stories of people saying that they're voting for us and people telling their friends and their family to support us -- it's a great feeling and we're very, very thankful."
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