Tillamook County Creamery Association facts for kids
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| Agricultural cooperative | |
| Industry | Dairy products |
| Founded | 1909 |
| Headquarters |
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United States
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| Products | Cheese, ice cream, yogurt, sour cream, butter, cream cheese spread |
The Tillamook County Creamery Association (often called TCCA or just Tillamook) is a special kind of company. It's owned by farmers who work together. Their main office is in Tillamook County, Oregon, in the United States.
Tillamook makes and sells many dairy products under the "Tillamook" name. Their main building is the Tillamook Creamery. You can find it a couple of miles north of the city of Tillamook on Highway 101.
Tillamook is one of the biggest dairy companies in North America. In 2021, they sold products worth $1 billion! The company has almost 900 employees in Oregon. It is the largest employer in Tillamook County. While the brand is most popular in the western U.S., you can find its products in all 50 states. Tillamook often wins awards for its delicious dairy products.
About 60 dairy farms are part of this cooperative. Most of these farms are located right in Tillamook County. The cooperative sells many dairy items. These include cheese, ice cream, butter, sour cream, and yogurt. Some products are made by Tillamook itself. Others are made by partner companies that have a special agreement with Tillamook.
Their most famous product is Tillamook cheese. The most popular type is Tillamook Cheddar. In 2010, Tillamook's Medium Cheddar cheese won a gold medal. It was at the World Cheese Championship Cheese Contest in Wisconsin. The cheese scored very high, beating 59 other cheeses!
How Tillamook Started
The Tillamook Valley was a great place for dairy cattle in the mid-1800s. But it was hard to move milk and butter over the mountains. In 1854, some local farmers built a schooner (a type of sailing ship). They named it the Morning Star. This ship helped them carry butter to Portland, Oregon. Today, the Morning Star is part of the Tillamook logo. You can even see a copy of the ship at the Tillamook Cheese Factory.
The first cheese factory in the county was started in 1894. It was built by Peter McIntosh and T. S. Townsend. The Tillamook County Creamery Association itself began in 1909. It was formed by ten different creameries working together. By 1917, TCCA started advertising its products in big cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Under manager George R. Lawson, Tillamook began making rindless cheese in 1946. They also started bottling milk the next year. In 1949, a new Tillamook Cheese Factory was built. It was located north of Tillamook city. This bigger factory had a storage area and a shipping department.
A second cheese-making factory was built in Boardman, Oregon, in 2001. This new factory, called Columbia River Processing, Inc., greatly increased Tillamook's ability to make cheese. In 2009, the Tillamook County Creamery Association celebrated 100 years of business.
Visiting the Tillamook Creamery
The Tillamook Cheese Factory is located at 4165 U.S. 101 North in Tillamook, Oregon. It's the original place where Tillamook makes its cheese. This factory also has a special visitor center called the Tillamook Creamery. More than 1.3 million tourists visit it every year!
When you visit, you can learn how cheese is made and packaged. You can also see how ice cream is created. There's a viewing area above the main production floor where you can watch. The tours are self-guided, so you can go at your own speed. Videos and interactive screens help you learn even more.
Tours that went inside the actual cheese-making area stopped in 1967. This was due to health and safety rules. A brand new visitor center opened in June 2018. It has a large space for exhibits and viewing. The center also has a dining area and a gift shop.
The Tillamook Cheese Factory makes a lot of cheese every day. They produce over 170,000 pounds of cheese daily. About one million pounds of cheese are packaged there each week. The factory's warehouse can store 50 million pounds of cheese at one time for aging. Tillamook also has other cheese-making places, like the one in Boardman, Oregon. They also work with other companies for packaging and distribution.
Tillamook has used fun ways to tell people about their products. They had a "Loaf Love Tour" with special Volkswagen buses. These buses looked like big loaves of cheese! They would give out cheese samples at grocery stores and community events.
Tillamook also has commercials on TV. Some of their campaigns include "Food Loves Tillamook," "Dairy Done Right," and "Goodbye Big Food, Hello Real Food." Tillamook even helped sponsor the Grilled Cheese Invitational in 2010 and 2011. This was a fun event where people competed to make the best grilled cheese sandwiches.
