10/27/05 Making Swiss cheese takes time

Delores Wheeler is the President and CEO of Gossner Foods, the Utah-based company that's about to begin Swiss cheese production at its new 25-million dollar plant in Heyburn. WHEELER "I don't know of anybody that gets overly confident in making Swiss cheese because it's in my opinion, and I've heard this from many people, the most difficult cheese you can make as far as knowing what your quality is going to be." Swiss cheese has to go through a cooling process, followed by a warming process for the eyes to form, and then another cooling process, which all takes time. WHEELER "It's the eye formation and you have to hold the cheese for sixty days before you can sell it so you have large inventories on hand but also until you're sure what the quality is going to be which you don't know until all the eyes are formed and its gone through the whole process, you can't adjust until you know there's a problem or not. So you could be 45 days into making cheese and find out its not working out right." That's why she'll breathe easier in January if there were no production problems. Wheeler says they're also going to build and open a retail story at Heyburn next year. WHEELER "We didn't intend to do it this soon but because of everybody wanting it so badly we said well if we're going to stay in the community we better listen to what they're telling us." Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott