The Vermont Cheese Council has hired its first-ever executive director — and it’s plucked him from the top of the Vermont food world.

Tom Bivins has left his job as executive chef and partner of Stowe’s Crop Bistro & Brewery to become executive director of VCC.

“I am very excited to be working with Vermont Cheese and cheese makers,” writes Bivins in an email. “I have long been a consumer [of cheese], both in a wholesale capacity and a retail capacity.”

Bivins graduated from the New England Culinary Institute in 1991 and worked in various high-profile Vermont kitchens, including the Inn at Shelburne Farms and the Pitcher Inn. Before he opened Crop, he spent eight years as NECI’s executive chef and served as the Vermont Fresh Network’s board chair.

The original print version of this article was headlined “Parting Curds”

This article appears in Jan 22-28, 2014.

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Corin Hirsch was a Seven Days food writer 2011 through 2016. She was also a dining critic and drinks columnist at Newsday from 2017 to 2022, and contributes to The Guardian, Wine Enthusiast and other publications. She’s spoken often on colonial era...