It’s “grate” to be a Cabot consumer

Located at 869 Exchange St., tucked a few hundred yards off of the road, is the Cabot Creamery. Though one could easily drive by without noticing the building, the state-of-the-art factory, which opened in 1995 and operates year round, uses 1.6 million pounds of milk to produce 160,000 pounds of cheese each day. The vast majority of cheese is shipped to Cabot, Vt., home of the well-known cheese company, though the factory also sells some of its product to other brands, including Kraft, the factory’s previous operator, and Sargento. In the late 19th century, Cabot suffered financial difficulties, so farmers from the dairy co-operative, Agri-Mark, voted to buy the Cabot name.



“[Cheese] is probably one of the oldest products that was made in Vermont,” said Bernie Boudreau, the plant manager. “Cabot’s an important piece of it because we make it a sellable product to put it on the shelves.”
Yet for every 100 pounds of milk the plant uses, it can only produce 10 pounds of actual cheese. The other 90 pounds are whey, a clear liquid that is extracted at multiple steps in the cheese making process. In 2001, Cabot built a whey plant, which is as big as the cheese plant, and Boudreau said it is just one of four like it in the entire world. From the whey, which is dehydrated, the plant produces two proteins: lactoferrin (140 pounds/day) and WPC-80 (14,000 pounds/day), which is a protein concentrate found in sports drinks. These powders are sold all over the world, including in China, Argentina and Brazil.

The factory plays an important role on a local scale as well. Boudreau knows all of the approximately 200 farmers who choose to sell their milk to the company.

The plant also employs 110 people, from both Vermont and New York. While most employees specialize in one aspect of production, those who can perform multiple jobs do receive higher wages.

“This plant is probably the top plant in the northeast,” said Boudreau, who has worked for Agri-Mark Cabot for 39 years and and started with a factory job himself. He takes pride in the fact that the factory always produces a quality product, as a sample from all incoming milk is analyzed in the lab before the cheese is made. The plant is also certified to test samples from other factories if they is unsure of their test results.

This time and care is evident in all stages in the cheese making process. The fresh milk from local dairy farmers arrives in trucks each day and is first run through a series of pipes that pasteurize the milk to ensure the liquid has no bacteria. Entering one of six large cheese vats, the milk soon coagulates, turning into a jello-like substance. Agitators in the vats move the milk and it begins separating into curds and whey. From the vats, the cheese curds enter the cheddaring process, moving along a perforated belt for two and a half hours before they are sprayed with salt on another belt. The cheese then enters cheddaring towers that are full of holes, which allows the whey to be extracted from the cheese. Once at the bottom of the towers, the cheese is pressed into 42 pound blocks, 16 of which can fit into large wooden storage boxes. The boxes are then moved to storage rooms, which are kept at cool temperatures. The longer cheese sits after being made, the sharper the flavor. Some blocks are sharp after a few months, though others can sit for as long as three years. One block from each vat is deemed the sample block, and testers from Cabot, Vt. visit the Middlebury factory to test the flavor and determine whether the cheese is ready for packaging.

Perhaps most impressive, the factory never stops operating. Though it is thoroughly washed for three hours every day, it never shuts down.

“We run 365 days a year,” said Boudreau, who is quick to note that the entire cheese-making process is energy-efficient as well.

The plant uses Efficiency Vermont, an energy efficiency utility, to help cut costs where possible. Over the last year, the factory has introduced energy-efficient light bulbs. In addition, the water that is extracted from the whey is used to wash the equipment and to pre-heat incoming milk plate pasteurizers. This re-use is only made possible by a state-of-the-art purification system in which water goes through filtration units, reverse osmosis and UV light. According to Boudreau, the plant’s UV light unit is the only one in the 15 surrounding states; both the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have visited the factory in Middlebury to see how the device works.

Though the plant’s advanced technology makes it an important component of Cabot’s cheese production, the company’s main factory is in Cabot, Vt. There are also stores in Waterbury Center and Quechee, Vt.
“[Cabot] is a rapidly growing company,” said Boudreau. “We make the most money we can for our farm members.”