Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery Tour!
The title of this blog post should be called “I died and went to cheese makers heaven” - but that’s just how we feel about our amazing day in Ellsworth, Wisconsin. So lets bring you back to when the Ellsworth Public Library did an online auction and one of the items was “Cheese maker for a day” with Ellsworth Coop. And being a sucker for auctions (and good causes) we HAD to get it. And we did ;)
Fast-forward to Monday (3/1), the day came where we got to experience their operations in a full day of non-stop cheese! We started our day at 5:00am in the factory and got to meet countless people that make Ellsworth Coop the Cheese Curd Capital of Wisconsin. And man… they do produce a lot of curds in one day!
To recap our day in a blog post is going to be tough, but a few highlights that stood out to us were:
Ellsworth Cooperative supports nearly 300 different farmers within the Minnesota & Wisconsin surrounding areas. They support small farmers all the way to large operations, even with their continued growth - they still are continuing to support Wisconsin and Minnesota farmers. So knowing that their cheese comes from our neighborhood makes us even more happy to support their operations!
We also learned about how much they utilize the milk coming in. Beyond making cheese, the excess milky/watery fluid that is a ‘discard’ for cheese-making is actually turned into two products - Whey and Water. Both of which don’t go to waste and make this operation one that has very very little waste. Even when we saw the cheese curd making process, there was tiny little crumbs that you wouldn’t be able to eat - but they utilized it for creating cheeses for things like salads or even brats (get those in their retail store - highly recommend!).
We also saw the whole packaging process and how the managers there truly care about their workers and are trying to make it more seamless and easy for everyone.
And let’s also not forget that they have SCIENTISTS on site who test everything daily. From testing for levels of different bacteria on the equipment, milk, or browning of their whey. It’s amazing that this is all performed in-house and truly shows that they care about the product they are giving to their customers.
But the weirdest part of our day was when we got to sample un-salted cheese curds…. Lots of dots there because man. I am unsure of how to even describe the taste - but it is one that I don’t recommend! And sampling some curds right from the assembly line (shhh!) was night and day difference.
We could write a lot more about our day, but honestly - it was jam packed and filled with so much info that even the above info is just a fraction of what we all learned. This opportunity was amazing and we felt so welcomed, being a small little charcuterie business from Duluth. After seeing the amount of product they ship out every single day made our operation look like peanuts! Truly was in awe. Take a look at some pictures from our day below. And of course, stop by their creamery in Ellsworth, WI or buy some cheese online!
