Hills’ Home-Cured Cheese is one of the Lansing City Market’s oldest and most successful businesses. But that success did not come without the company’s ability to reinvent itself to meet the needs of its customer base. And the changes have certainly paid off.

Hills, one of the area’s oldest family-owned and operated businesses, originally opened up shop on Turner Street and was then just an open-air fruit stand stocked with whatever could be harvested from the family’s farm.

As business grew there came the need for a bigger and better location.  They eventually moved from the corner of Shiawassee Street and Grand Avenue to the site of Lansing’s old city market.  It was there that Glenn Hills got his first look at the business. “I was born in April, 1938, so my parents brought me into their market in a basket and I never left.” Hills, the current owner of Hills’ Home-Cured Cheese, said doing business back then wasn’t easy. “We had no heat,” he remembers. “Vendors would start fires in barrels outside the door to keep warm.” Rent was $35 a year. A proposal to install heaters, though, boosted that cost to $50 annually. Hills said his grandfather wasn’t too pleased. The move came during the Great Depression and Hills says families were struggling. “We had our four workers living with us.  They had no money to live anywhere else—that’s how terrible it was back then.”

Despite the tough economic times, the business thrived. The farm became one of the largest fruit farms in central Michigan, offering apples, peaches, cherries and strawberries. In 1956, however, Glenn decided to make his own contribution to the business. While working his way through business school, he sold eggs for four farmers in the area.  “We displayed a beautiful stock of eggs. The jumbos had as many as three yokes in them.” One of the biggest changes for the company would come just a few years later with the decline of the chicken industry. “It became cheaper to bring the eggs in than to produce them, so as that business was slipping we knew we’d need something else.” The something else? Cheese.

In May, 1961, Glenn went out on his own with an idea. He bought about 70 pounds of cheese from a store in Clinton County. He admits he didn’t know much about the business back then. “I knew half of it was mild and the rest was medium but I wasn’t sure what brand of cheese it was.” Despite warnings he was buying more than he could sell, he opted to take a chance. “I told them I’d start with just one of each and see how it goes.” While Glenn takes full claim for the idea of selling cheese, he credits his mother for the merchandising ideas. “She told me to go to the dime store uptown and get some pretty bright trays,” he recalls. He cut up the two wheels of cheese, wrapped them and took the trays to the city market. “It didn’t look real fancy and we had to be careful not to tear the wrap.”

But despite the lack of glitz, his cheesy idea was a success. “We gave away samples and pretty soon we sold out,” he recalls.  The biggest question about Hills’ latest venture was telling customers what type of cheese it was. Since he wasn’t sure, he took a few suggestions from the customers. “One lady said she had just come from Pinconning and she was sure it was Pinconning.”

Another woman, however, said it was cheese from Frankenmuth. Yet another was positive it was Wisconsin Cheddar. “I told them they could name the cheese and that’s what they did!”

Hills soon became more adventuresome. “I ordered 350 pounds of cheese this time. They were all different brands.” He said soon he was selling more cheese at the market than they were out of their store. Now, dealing solely with brokers, shipments started at a thousand pounds, half domestically produced with the other half imported from England, France, Holland, Spain, Ireland and the Netherlands.

Customers have come from as far away as the Middle East to sample his cheese and many have since become regular buyers. Hills says experts at Michigan State University advised him to add aged cheese to his product list. “They told me if I’m going to do well I’ve got to offer aged Cheddar.” Aged cheese eventually became one of the business’ core products. “We have some cheese that’s old enough to vote,” he jokes.

Hills' next big break came when auctions were held for space in the old Lansing City Market.  Again he turned to his mother for advice. “I opted for a booth on the south end of the facility near Cedar Street at three and a half times the rent.” While others thought the move was the wrong one, Hills says his mother pushed for the change. “It seemed like a lot of money at the time, but business increased dramatically. The rent hike turned out to be no big deal. It was the best decision I ever made.”

That apparently was until his decision in 1994 to invest in the Flint market.

“There was a lag between the closing of the old city market and the opening of the new one. Lots of vendors were caught off-guard and went out of business.” Hills was able to shift business to Flint and credits the move for saving his cheese business.

There are hopes the business will remain family-owned for years to come.

Hills’ wife, Ruth Ann, works with him side-by-side. His son Paul is also involved. But the future of the Lansing City Market is of concern. Hills says his company has flourished. “Ironically, when gas hit four dollars a gallon, business really started to take off. More people were staying home and buying better products to entertain at home with.”

As for Hills turning over the keys to the shop anytime soon, it doesn’t look like it. “I’m not looking at retiring,” he says. “Why quit something you really love?” Hills jokingly adds he has a litmus test, of sorts, to determine if it’s time to call it quits. “When I can’t cut the cheese any longer, then they can pull the curtains.”