11/29/06 Tillamook Wins Awards

Tillamook wins awards. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. There is nothing cheesy about winning an award for cheese. At the annual meeting of the National Milk Producers Federation, Tillamook County Creamery Association was awarded several top prizes for their products. According to Mark Wustenberg, Vice President of Member Relations and Public Affairs explains. WUSTENBERG: As part of their annual meeting they basically have a cheese judging contest and so a number of different cooperatives from around the country would submit cheeses into the different classes that they have. The contest has a number of different classes including different ages of cheese, Italian soft and hard cheeses, processed cheeses, unique and specialty cheeses and others. Wustenberg talks about one of the winning cheeses. WUSTENBERG: The most prestigious award we won there in the competition was for a product that is our medium aged vintage white cheddar. So it was in the medium aged cheddar category and basically that cheese took the first place in the category, it took first place as far as the best of all of the cheddars that were judged whether they were aged, medium or mild and then it also took the best overall for show for all of the different types of cheeses that were judged there. Wustenberg says these awards are important to Tillamook's success. WUSTENBERG: Well I think most importantly, I think it's a way of judging yourself against the rest of the industry and so, you know when we are stating that we are really focusing on the quality, consistency and taste of the product, those kinds of things, it's a way for us to be able to compare to the rest of the industry and say; yea we are unique or we're certainly on the top of the heap in terms of other cheese that's being made there and in terms of the way we talk about our product. Tillamook cheese is actually a cooperative according to Heidi Luquette, Communications and Executive Support Manager. LUQUETTE: We're a farmer owned cooperative, founded in 1909. We are getting ready to celebrate a 100 year anniversary coming in '09, pretty excited about that. We do have a, really a full line of dairy products under the Tillamook brand. A total of 10 NMPF member cooperatives participated in the competition. They submitted 122 samples that totaled 2,252 pounds of cheese. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.