Caves of Faribault facts for kids

The Caves of Faribault is a special company in Faribault, Minnesota. It's part of Swiss Valley Farms. This company uses natural sandstone caves to age its cheese. They make many kinds of cheese from raw milk, including different types of blue cheese, Gouda, and cheddar.

A Brief History of the Cheese Caves

How Blue Cheese Started Here

In 1936, the Treasure Cave Cheese Company opened in Faribault. This was the first company in the United States to make blue cheese on a large scale. They used the natural caves along the river to age their cheese. During World War II, Treasure Cave helped Minnesota become a main place for making blue cheese.

Changes Over Time

The company did well for many years. But starting in 1965, it was bought and merged with other companies several times. In 1990, a company called ConAgra bought the business and then closed the cheese plant.

Reopening the Caves

In 2001, Jeff Jirik and two former employees from ConAgra started a new company. They called it Faribault Dairy Company, Inc. They reopened the plant. In 2002, they brought back the original Treasure Cave blue cheese. They named it AmaBlu. The company uses raw milk from local farms. This milk is tested to make sure it's safe and good quality. A few years later, they started aging other cheeses, like cheddar, in the caves. The special rock in the caves helps give the cheese a unique smell and taste.

The Caves of Faribault Today

In 2010, Swiss Valley Farms bought Faribault Dairy. This company is a group of over 640 dairy farm families. They renamed the business to The Caves of Faribault. Jeff Jirik became the Vice President of Blue Cheese Operations. Today, the plant processes about 180,000 pounds of milk each week. This makes about 20,000 pounds of cheese!

The Amazing Geology of the Caves

What is Saint Peter Sandstone?

After the last ice age, huge sheets of ice melted and moved away. This showed thick layers of a rock called Saint Peter Sandstone. You can find this rock mostly in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and northern Missouri. Rivers formed by the melting ice cut through this sandstone. They created tall cliffs, like the ones in Faribault.

Faribault's Location

Faribault is about fifty miles south of Minneapolis. It's in the Cannon River Valley. A smaller river, the Straight River, flows north on the east side of Faribault. This river cut a hundred-foot-high cliff in the Saint Peter Sandstone.

Early History of Faribault

In 1836, Alexander Faribault (who the city is named after) set up a trading post here. It was where the Cannon and Straight Rivers meet. Many mills were built near the rivers' waterfalls. These mills made things like flour, lumber, and wool.

How Caves Were First Used for Brewing

German Brewers in Minnesota

Faribault attracted two brothers, Ernst and Gottfried Fleckenstein. They were German immigrants whose family had been brewers since 1577. In 1855, the brothers opened a small brewery in St. Paul. Two years later, they moved to Faribault. They built the Fleckenstein Brewery along the Straight River, next to the sandstone cliff.

Why Caves for Beer?

German brewers brought a different way of making beer to the United States. They made a type of beer called lager. Lager beer needs cool temperatures to ferment and age properly. In Germany, brewers often used caves or deep cellars for this. These places stayed cool all the time.

The Fleckenstein brothers saw how useful the Saint Peter Sandstone caves were. They used the natural caves in the Straight River cliffs to brew and age their beer. In 1872, the brothers went their separate ways. Gottfried Fleckenstein continued the brewery with his sons. The brewery eventually closed in 1902.

Blue Cheese and the Caves

Perfect Conditions for Cheese

Brewers and cheesemakers need similar things to make and age their products. They both need constant temperature and humidity. The Saint Peter Sandstone caves provide perfect conditions all year round. The temperature stays around 52.5°F, and the humidity is almost 100%. The sandstone is also very strong. This allowed for building bigger caves to age both beer and cheese.

The Start of American Blue Cheese

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, American cheesemakers started making their own versions of European cheeses. Because of World War I, it was hard to get French cheese. The U.S. Department of Agriculture began researching how to make a cow's milk "Roquefort" cheese. But it wasn't until the 1920s that serious work began on making cow's milk blue cheese in natural caves.

Minnesota's Role in Blue Cheese

The University of Minnesota, along with the cities of St. Paul and Faribault, were key in making blue cheese in the U.S. In 1933, Professor Willes Barnes Combs from the University of Minnesota studied how to use the sandstone caves. These caves were found in a St. Paul area known as "mushroom valley." After two years of trying, Professor Combs announced his success in 1935. The University of Minnesota then opened its own Roquefort Cheese Caves. Soon after, a new blue cheese business started in Faribault.

Felix Frederiksen's Dream

Felix Frederiksen (1892–1974) discovered Roquefort cheese while in France during World War I. Roquefort cheese is made from sheep's milk and aged in natural limestone caves. After the war, Frederiksen wanted to make American Roquefort-style cheese. He became a food scientist. He worked for Pabst Farms, which was the cheese part of Pabst Brewing Company. This was during a time when alcohol was illegal in the U.S. (Prohibition). Pabst made a processed cheese spread and aged cheeses in its brewery cellars, which were empty of beer barrels.

After alcohol became legal again in 1933, Pabst sold its cheese business to Kraft. Frederiksen then worked on an experimental blue cheese program for Kraft. After that program ended, Frederiksen kept working to create an American blue cheese using natural caves. In the mid-1930s, he and his wife traveled through Iowa and Minnesota. They were looking for the perfect place to make, age, and store blue cheese.

Treasure Cave is Born

In 1935, the Frederiksens arrived in Faribault. They bought the old Fleckenstein Brewery property. There, they started the Treasure Cave Cheese Company in 1936. While the University of Minnesota made the first test batches, Frederiksen's Treasure Cave Cheese Company was the first to make blue cheese commercially in the United States.

The Sandstone's Special Qualities

The arched caves and the very pure Saint Peter Sandstone (which is almost 100% pure quartzite) created a unique aging environment. The sandstone is slightly acidic. This helps prevent unwanted bacteria and yeasts. Also, water can easily move through the stone. This helps remove ammonia from the cheese as it ages. The cliff face above the cave is always warming up. This pulls moisture out, creating a slow movement of water from inside the cave to the outside.

In 2001, when Faribault Dairy reopened the caves, they cleaned the sandstone. They found that some high corners had different colored surfaces. These were molds and yeasts from the old beer and cheese businesses! They decided not to remove these tiny living things. Their presence helps give the company's cheeses their special qualities and flavors.

Awards and Recognition

Since 2001, The Caves of Faribault has won many awards. These include state, national, and international honors. For example, in 2014, they won Good Food Awards for their Jeffs' Select Gouda and St. Pete's Select Blue Cheese. In 2013, they won a Specialty Outstanding Food Innovation award for Jeffs' Select cheese.