Operations

MILK RECEIVING You can't make quality cheese without fresh milk. Our milk is trucked in daily, directly from southern Wisconsin farms. Our job is to carefully test each batch to make sure it's safe. We then gently pasteurize and clarify the milk, getting it ready for our cheesemakers to make it into great cheese.
CHEESEMAKING It takes a long time to make a quality cheese, so we start very early in the morning. First we fill the cheese vats with milk and carefully control the temperature. We add natural cultures, which define the cheese and give each type its own distinct flavor and texture. The mixture then sets and is carefully cut, stirred and cooked into a combination of curds and whey.
TABLE TECHS When the cheesemakers are done preparing the curd and whey, it's time for us to work our magic. We remove the whey and shape the cheese from the curd by pressing it into a form. We carefully control the pressure and temperature both key components in determining the density and creaminess of our perfectly balanced cheeses.
BRINING Salt water brining is an ancient technique that we use to create a rind on the outside of the cheese. The rind then preserves the cheese during the curing process, creating a barrier from outside contaminants. Brining also helps with the flavor by giving the cheese its salty taste.
BULK PACKAGING Most of our cheeses need to be packaged in some way before curing. We wrap each piece individually and make sure it's sealed correctly in order for it to cure properly. We're also responsible for a certain number of our quality control measures; we do visual quality checks, code each vat of cheese for quality tracking and take samples for future quality analysis.
AFFINAGE Our Gruyere, Raclette and Fontina all require surface ripening in order to achieve their distinctive flavors. Surface ripening means we wash the surface of the cheese by brushing each wheel frequently throughout the curing time. We also need to carefully control the temperature and humidity in the curing rooms. In order to create the perfect wheel of cheese, each piece gets constant attention while it's in our care.
CUT & WRAP LABELING This is where we package the cheeses that you see in the refrigerator case of the grocery store. Since most consumers aren't interested in buying a 10 pound wheel of cheese, we take the large wheels and cut them into smaller pieces. Each piece gets a beauty label, a nutritional label and a code date for lot integrity. We then package the smaller pieces into a specially designed box and ship them out to the grocery store for sale.
FINISHED PACKAGING Each of our cheeses is packed to specific customer specifications. In finished packaging we package our fine cheeses in bulk sizes, usually for restaurants or supermarket deli cases. Each cheese is visually checked one last time for quality, packaged into a specially designed box, labeled for beauty and nutrition and bar coded so we can track it throughout the distribution process.

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