Factory to farm takes you to where your cheese started toward your cracker

CABOT — When we arrived a few minutes early for a tour of the Cabot Creamery cheese factory here, we were directed to the back room, armed with toothpicks and napkins, and turned loose on bowls of cheese morsels. We started with the Mild cheddar and worked our way up to Seriously Sharp and Vintage before our tour was called. The assorted dips and flavored cheddars such as horseradish, sage, chipotle, or smoky bacon would have to wait.

Cabot is the largest of the 41 members of the Vermont Cheese Council. Predictably enough, the tour begins with a short video that recounts the origin of the Cabot Cooperative, formed in 1919 when 94 farmers each chipped in a cord of wood and $5 per cow to buy out the Cabot village creamery. This Cabot plant (one of three and the only one open for tours) produces the company’s cultured milk products as well as the flavored cheddars and cheddar wheels. The short walk through the modern facility — viewed through large windows — is great for fact-mongers. We learned that the facility can store 1 million pounds of milk, that it makes 43 tons of cheddar a day at full production, and that each pound of cheese requires 10 pounds of milk.