The little co-op that can Tillamook County Creamery Association is growing beyond its roots in the Pacific Northwest. Meet the dairy cooperative making award-winning premium cheeses that are among the top-selling brands.
Cheesemaking is all about balance and achieving consistency in the finished product. When the cheesemaker is also a dairy cooperative, there are additional and often competing concerns to balance. The farmer members of the co-op want a fair price for their milk, but the processing side doesn’t want to overpay, lest the finished product is too expensive for the market. The co-op might want to grow, but that can mean increasing the herd size, accepting new members or purchasing milk outside the co-op. Those needs have to be balanced with long-range goals.
Tillamook County Creamery Association is all too familiar with this balancing act. The dairy co-op has approximately 105 members, with the typical farmer milking an average of 200 dairy cows. In addition to the farmers, TCCA has approximately 475 year-round employees at its headquarters in Tillamook, Ore., 30 in a sales and marketing office in Tigard and 130 in Boardman.