Tillamook County Creamery Association

Tillamook County Creamery Association
Agricultural marketing cooperative
Industry Food processing
Founded 1909
Headquarters Tillamook, Oregon, United States
Products Dairy
Website www.tillamook.com
Tillamook County Creamery Association processing exterior as seen from Highway 101

The Tillamook County Creamery Association (TCCA) is a dairy cooperative headquartered in Tillamook County, Oregon, United States. The association manufactures and sells dairy products under the "Tillamook" brand name. Its main facility is the Tillamook Cheese Factory located two miles north of the city of Tillamook on U.S. Route 101.

The 48th largest dairy processor in North America, Tillamook posted $654 million in sales in 2015, the trade magazine Dairy Foods reports. TCCA employs nearly 900 people in Oregon and is the largest employer in Tillamook County. The brand is strongest in the West but sells in all 50 states. It routinely wins awards from the American Cheese Society and other groups.[1]

The co-operative includes nearly 100 dairy farms, mostly within Tillamook County. Products produced by the co-operative include cheese and ice cream; butter, sour cream, and yogurt is produced with co-manufacturing partners.[2] Their most famous product is Tillamook cheese, including the famous Tillamook Cheddar. In March 2010, Tillamook's Medium Cheddar cheese won the gold medal in the 2010 World Cheese Championship Cheese Contest hosted by the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association in Madison, Wisconsin. The cheese scored 99.6 out of 100 points possible, beating 59 other entries.[3]

History

Exterior of the factory in 1992

The Tillamook Valley was ideal for dairy cattle in the mid-19th century, but transporting the milk and butter over the mountains surrounding the valley was a problem. In 1854, several farmers from the county built a schooner named the Morning Star to transport butter to Portland, Oregon; the schooner is now featured as part of the co-op's logo, and a replica (constructed in 1992 by master shipwright Richard Miles of Aberdeen, WA) is on display at The Tillamook Cheese Factory. Peter McIntosh and T. S. Townsend established the county's first cheese factory in 1894. The association was founded by ten independent dairy farmers in 1909. TCCA hired an ad agency and began campaigning in 1917 in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland.[4]

Under secretary-manager George R. Lawson (CEO- 1944-1950), the cooperative began producing rindless cheese in 1946 and bottled milk the following year. In 1949, partnering with four independent plants and with financing arranged through First National Bank, the Tillamook Cheese Factory north of Tillamook was built. The enlarged facility included a storage plant and traffic department.

A second cheese-making facility, Columbia River Processing, Inc., was built in Boardman, Oregon in September 2001. Its production capacity doubled TCCA’s cheesemaking capabilities.[5]


In 2009, Tillamook County Creamery Association celebrated 100 years in business.[1]

Tillamook Cheese Factory

Inside the Tillamook Cheese Factory
Tillamook plant small cheese block processing lines

The Tillamook Cheese Factory, located at 4185 U.S. 101 North in Tillamook, Oregon, is the Tillamook County Creamery Association's original cheese production facility. The Tillamook Cheese Factory also has a visitor center and hosts over 1.3 million tourists each year.[1] Visitors can learn about the cheesemaking process, cheese packaging process, and the ice cream-making process from a viewing gallery over the main production floor. Tours are self-guided and self-paced, and are augmented by video presentations and interactive kiosks.[6] Tours inside the actual cheese processing area of the plant were discontinued in 1967 due to health and safety regulations.[7]

The Tillamook Cheese Factory produces more than 170,000 pounds of cheese each day, and packages approximately one million pounds of cheese on-site each week.[6] The factory warehouse has the capacity to age 50 million pounds of cheese at once.[6] The cooperative also operates the aforementioned cheesemaking facilities in Boardman, Oregon, and contracts some of its packaging and distribution to Marathon Cheese in Mountain Home, Idaho, and Great Lakes Cheese in Salt Lake City.[8][9]

Marketing

Tillamook has over 500,000 fans on Facebook, and almost 45,000 followers on Twitter, over 20,000 followers on Instagram and its own blog.[10] Tillamook also had a "Loaf Love Tour" featuring customized Volkswagen "Baby Loaf" buses that sample cheese at grocery stores and community events.[10] Tillamook commercials on television include its "Food Loves Tillamook" campaign, Dairy Done Right campaign, and "Goodbye Big Food, Hello Real Food" campaign.[10] Tillamook sponsored the Grilled Cheese Invitational in 2010 and 2011.[11]

Controversy

TCCA bought the cheese cooperative in Bandon, Oregon in 2000. After buying the Bandon Cheese factory and its brand name, Tillamook's lawyers warned several South Coast businesses with "Bandon" in their names that they might need to make a "content change" to avoid confusion with the cheese.[1] This controversy made international news, particularly in 400-year-old Bandon, Ireland, where residents have milked cows for generations.[1]

The cooperative ran into additional controversy in 2004 with its attempted enforcement of the Tillamook Cheese and Bandon Cheese trademarks against local businesses such as Tillamook Country Smoker, a purveyor of jerky and smoked meats for over 30 years. The creamery tried to stop the meat company from using the name Tillamook.[12][13] In that 2004 case, a federal judge ruled that Tillamook Country Smoker could register its name as a trademark, but that Tillamook Country Smoker could not use or register the Tillamook Jerky mark.[1]

The move that garnered Tillamook the most nationwide attention though, came in 2005, after a slew of consumer inquiries about dairies' use of a genetically engineered bovine growth hormone designed to boost milk production.[1] The U.S. Food and Drug Administration had said milk products derived from cows injected with the hormone were safe, but consumer worries about potential cancer risks persisted.[1] Over objections from some member farmers and from biotechnology giant Monsanto, which manufactured the hormone, Tillamook County Creamery Association voted to require all its dairy suppliers to phase out its use. Tillamook was one of the first big national dairy brands to make such a decision.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Katy Muldoon (July 25, 2009). "Tillamook: the town that cheese built". The Oregonian. Retrieved 2009-09-08.
  2. ↑ Swindler, Samantha. "50 jobs lost". Tillamook Headlight Herald. Retrieved 2015-03-29.
  3. ↑ Crombie, Noelle. Tillamook cheddar takes top honors. The Oregonian. March 2010.
  4. ↑ Todd, Anne. Traditions run 100-years deep at Tillamook County Creamery. Rural Cooperatives Magazine. July/August 2009.
  5. ↑ "Tillamook Cheese to Double Capacity at Boardman." Dairy Foods Magazine. January 1, 2005
  6. 1 2 3 Catherine Crawford. "Savoring Tillamook’s Cheese and Coastal Beauty". 52perfectdays.com.
  7. ↑ http://www.tillamookcheese.com/FAQS/Visitors_Center.aspx
  8. ↑ http://www.crbizjournal.com/news/article_2f4d9fe0-4d82-11e1-920e-001871e3ce6c.html
  9. ↑ Tobias, Lori (February 4, 2012). "Much of the Tillamook Cheese Factory's packaging operations shut down". The Oregonian. Retrieved February 4, 2012.
  10. 1 2 3 Elliott, Stuart (May 2, 2011). "Love That Cheese, Burger Declares". The New York Times.
  11. ↑ Jordan, Miriam (May 3, 2011). "For These Sandwich Lovers, the Cheese Stands Alone". The Wall Street Journal.
  12. ↑ "Tillamook in court over name". BNet.com. 2004. Retrieved 2009-09-08.
  13. ↑ Winston Ross (Jan 13, 2004). "Relationship sours between creamery, meat producer". The Register-Guard.
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