Nuestro Queso grows with Hispanic-style cheeses: a look inside the cheese plant
The owners bought a building in Kent that had been used for cheesemaking since the 1940s. It was empty when they took possession of it, so the owners had to outfit it with new equipment.
Most cheese plants are in small towns, not in major metropolitan areas. That makes sense, because the plants need to be near the milk supply: dairy farms. But Kent, Ill., is really small. The sign at the edge of the town notes the population as “people 72, dogs 52.”
Kent is about 2 ½ hours by car northwest of Chicago and an hour from historic Galena, near the Iowa border. This is where Nuestro Queso, headquartered in Rosemont, Ill., (near O’Hare International Airport) makes cheese.