Cheese On Wheels
An increasing number of
Empire State dairy farmers are interested in producing cheese, yogurt and
other supplemental products to help pad their incomes and raise their
profiles, The New York Times recently reported. But not many have the time or money to
invest in learning to process milk into cheese.
Enter the brainchild of Rick Bishop, the agricultural
economic developer with the Sullivan County Division of Planning. Dairy
farmers in Sullivan County, N.Y., are being visited by the CheeseMobile, a
trailer with a custom-built, state-approved dairy plant inside. The
12-by-36-foot unit is complete with boiler, air handler, sinks, coolers and
a cheese make-room containing all the necessary equipment to manufacture,
package and age cheese. It is supplied by lines from the milk room that
fill the 200-gallon pasteurizer three to four times a week for
cheesemaking.
The Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and
Education Program selected an application from Sullivan County to fund the
Modular Cheesemaking Training Unit that created the program to answer the
needs of the potential on-farm cheesemakers in the county.
Locally, the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Sullivan
County along with the county’s Division of Planning and Partnership
for Economic Development, plus the Sullivan County Agricultural Local
Development Corp., were involved in the development of the project. On the
state level, the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets,
Division of Milk Control and Dairy Services, dairy products specialist
William E. Fredericks Jr., and Tank Specialties Inc. of Watertown, N.Y.,
worked together with the county to design and developed the first 3-A
certified Tri-Vat for pasteurizing, holding and cheesemaking. With the
success of the current Cheese-Mobile, Tank Specialties has redesigned
an improved modular plant that is available as a turn-key, 3-A pre-approved
modular cheesemaking unit.
With this funding and farmer ingenuity, the first
CheeseMobile opened in April 2003.
Cheese travel — the wave of the future? Indeed.
For more information, visit www.thecheesemobile.com.
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