Inside Arla’s cheese plant: the largest Havarti producer in U.S.
Arla’s cheese plant in Wisconsin is said to be the largest producer of Havarti in the United States. It also turns out Gouda, Edam, Fontina and Muenster.
To see how White Clover Dairy grew up to become Arla Foods, it helps to look at a series of aerial photos hung in the entrance hallway to this cheese plant in Hollandtown, Wis. In the first image there is a farmhouse near the original plant. Later images show how expansions to the plant crept closer and closer to the house. Eventually, the plant completely surrounds the farmhouse, and in the last image, the house is gone. These additions over the years turned the facility into a 110,000-square-foot plant.
White Clover had been making Havarti for Arla. Then in 2006, Arla bought the plant, which is located 25 miles south of Green Bay. By 2011, the new owners had doubled the capacity of the plant and kept investing in it. The 225 plant employees can produce 32 million pounds of cheese annually.