That total market is about 264 million pounds per year, according to MCT Dairies, a dairy distributor and trading house in Milburn, N.J. MCT also said the Swiss cheese industry is centered in Ohio, which produces about 38 percent of the total.
Brewster manufactures cheese for companies that cut, package and rebrand it under their own names. In the late 1980s and early 90s, the company tried to sell its own brand, but decided to get out of that part of the market. Only about 5 percent of the company’s product sells as Brewster Cheese, and that’s done by contract now, Nelson said.
All that cheese makes Brewster the largest producer of Swiss in the country, and it’s not enough.
“We actually can’t make enough cheese,” Nelson said. “For the last two years, we haven’t been able to meet our demands.” The company is looking to open a facility in the West, but Nelson said they’re not ready to make any announcements, yet.
Brewster employs 185 here, including all the corporate and support staff, and another 80 in Illinois. The company make Swiss cheese, and only Swiss — regular, aged, reduced fat, baby and laccey (lots of small holes, like lace).
“We changed our strategic direction in 1997 to make only Swiss cheese,” Nelson said. Swiss is a specialty cheese rather than a commodity cheese, and a big part of the difference is profit margin.
“The sales of Swiss cheese and our ability to make good quality Swiss cheese was the driver for it.” then in 2001 the company totally rebuilt the facility, increasing capacity by 50 percent.
Locally, Brewster buys milk from about 275 farms, and about 200 in Illinois. The local deliveries aren’t enough, either.
Brewster has to buy a lot of condensed milk — 15 percent of their total — from Georgia, Texas, New Mexico and California.
“This is a milk-deficit area,” Nelson said. “There’s not enough milk in the area for all the plants and usages there are. Milk is not a growing industry in Ohio.”
Swiss is the company’s only cheese product, but that’s not all it sells. When raw milk is brought in, the curds are separated from the whey. Cheese is made from curds, and whey is a byproduct.
Whey amounts to about 90 percent of what is left from the milk. Nelson said it’s only about 6 percent solid, but that solid is basically protein and lactose, or milk sugar. Brewster separates the protein from the sugar, and makes both into powders.
The protein is used in health drinks and by the baking industry, while the lactose powder is used in infant formula and by the pharmaceutical industry as a filler for pills, Nelson said.
Brewster sells about 13 million pounds of whey powder and 11 million pounds of lactose powder each year, and that adds 25 percent to the company’s bottom line.
The plant operates 24/7 and only shuts down one day a year, for the company picnic and preventative maintenance, Nelson said.
Since 9/11safety regulations have been upgraded. The plants are totally locked down, as are many doors between sections of the plant. Visitors don’t get past a glassed-in observation point, where they can see the first step in the process and they view a “virtual tour” video.
And everything that comes in has to be sealed, including the milk trucks. “When they get here, they have to be sealed” after their last pickup, Nelson said. “If they come in here and they’re not sealed, we reject them.”
The company is on both sides of South Wabash Avenue, and sits in the middle of 185 mostly tree-covered acres. The company also runs its own water treatment plant, which sits right next to the village’s. The company’s plant is five times the size of the village’s, Nelson said.
Swiss immigrant John Leeman started working at Stark County Milk Producers in 1933, then in 1965 he and his son, Fritz, bought the plant and renamed it Brewster Cheese. Fritz Leeman is still the chief executive officer. |
