Cheese. The word that brings a smile to millions of faces all over the globe. To think of it, Starkville residents simply love cheese. The whopping sales of Mississippi State Fountain Bakery and Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Experiment Station Sales Store can certainly vouch for that.
The most popular cheese, Edam, originally from Holland, comes in three-pound, red wax-coated cannonballs, stamped with the MSU logo; these are made at Edward W. Cluster Dairy Processing Plant. Each year, the MAFES plant produces 55,000 of these signature products, along with another 2,000 reduced-fat versions of the same.
Plant manager David Hall said, “We are into making 1,200 cheese balls per day.”
According to Roy Goss, supervisor at the Fountain Bakery, Edam is preferred over any other cheese. Cheddar cheese is also a popular choice, and the plant makes 46,000 two-pound blocks of it. MAFES Sales Store also sells the Vallegret Wheel, which is a Norwegian style of Swiss cheese. Jalapeno pepper cheese blocks are also available at these cheese stores. American cheese spread and jalapeno pepper cheese spread are also available at MAFES and the State Fountain.
All of these are manufactured at Edward W. Cluster Dairy Processing Plant. “There are 3,000 blocks of cheese still remaining,” Goss said.
Goss said although he expects almost the entire stockpile to be sold out by next week, cheese sales shoot up during football games, too. The influx of people to Starkville from all over for the games increases sales for the store.
MAFES Sales Store, located across from Dorman Hall, sells Edam, cheddar and jalapeno cheese to the State Fountain Bakery. Cheese lovers who missed the Nov. 1 deadline for Christmas can still put orders in for Easter. Sales office manager Gloria Reed said, “We are already taking orders for Easter now.”
The Easter deadline is March 1.
Hall said that the plant is already manufacturing cheese for Easter. Hall also said he believes that MSU cheese is a good choice over other cheese, as the milk that goes into the production of cheese comes from the Mississippi State University dairy farm.
MSU milk is thoroughly tested for the presence of bacteria that can spoil the taste of the cheese produced, and such occurrences are avoided.
The quality control is immense, and the team is very much concerned about hygiene.
Hall said that the cheese is made and given ‘atleast’ three months time to acquire the necessary flavor.
“Working in a cheese manufacturing team involves a lot of manual labor and is
not very lucrative.” Hall added. “Being on the production team or the
quality control would be a better option for the aspiring students.”
Hall said it takes a full-time team to work on making cheese, as it is a continuous and meticulous process that requires a lot of dedication.
“Because of term assignments and class schedules, that normally would clash with the work hours that go into cheese manufacturing, students cannot be a part of the production team,” Hall said.
Students do help Hall and his team in the packaging of the
cheese into boxes, which is also a team effort. The students can certainly
learn a lot side by side about the efforts that go into the making of cheese.
Graduate students would prefer to work on research work that goes into the
study of manufacturing cheese in a more efficient manner.
This popular stocking stuffer will be gone soon.
“People buy Edam cheese as they make lovely Christmas
gifts,” Gross said.
Mafes does not make Christmas gifts from cheese.
Sales Store Manager, Gloria Reed added, “We sell all our cheese the way it is packed at the plant.”
She added that the store sells the products well before Christmas. Cheese can also be shipped to any part of the country if the orders are placed well before
time.
Although it can be shipped nationally and internationally, Hall warns the cheese get contaminated or spoiled during transit and also involves a lot of paper work.