AI agents are saving California’s favorite cheese. Here’s how Salesforce brought Petaluma Creamery back from the dead

Larry Peter has as much personality as the cheeses that once made Julia Child melt. He once sold cheese out of a woodshed he built next to a schoolhouse he bought from Sonoma High School for a dollar and now he owns a 113-year-old facility — three city blocks in the heart of Sonoma County — that he bought in 2004 when the original cooperative shut down after 91 years.

He has never had a broker. Never had a distributor. Now he sees AI agents as the key to getting more real cheese and butter to the people.

As a result, he’s got something else, much to his surprise: a company that runs on artificial intelligence.

The man who rode a bicycle to buy a dairy

Larry Peter grew up in Sebastopol picking prunes, grapes, and raspberries to pay for school clothes and bicycles. His father worked a green chain at a lumber mill for 40 years and never stopped talking about the dairy farm that he wished he’d raised his kids on…

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