01/04/07 Marathon to open cheese plant

Marathon Cheese Company should have its newly built Mountain Home production plant up and running within the next couple of weeks. Plant manager Jay Phillips says they will start with one production line but hope to have up to five lines by the spring. PHILLIPS "40 to 50 employees to start with. That will get us started with the first production line and then we'll gradually add a number of employees up to probably somewhere between 90 and 100 during this first six months of operation." Marathon could add a second, possibly a third shift this coming summer. Marathon is a privately held Midwest-based packaging company. PHILLIPS "You won't find the Marathon label in a lot of places because Marathon is a co-packer of products. We cut and wrap cheese for different branded customers." Marathon cuts and packages cheese sent to them or they buy cheese from Idaho or other western dairies. That cheese usually comes in forty pound blocks but some blocks can be as large as 700 pounds. Phillips says with one third of US cheese consumption west of the Rockies it made sense to locate their new facility in Mountain Home where there is plenty of cheese available within 100 miles of the plant. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott