Those hoping to purchase or give a famous Mississippi State University ball of cheese for a Christmas gift need to order soon.
David Hall, plant process production manager for the factory said that because nearly 90 percent of the stores’ cheeses are sold at Christmas time, people should order their cheeses early.
“We start getting orders for Christmas in June and July and we usually sell out of cheese by November,” Hall said.
Since its beginnings in 1938, the cheese store has grown from selling a few hundred cheeses a year to over 100,000.
Although it is commonly referred to as the “MSU cheese store” because of the popularity of the cheeses, the official name is Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station (MAFES) sales store.
Kim Matta, data entry operator for the store, said that there are seven different types of cheeses sold, all of which are made in the dairy-processing factory in the same building.
“Our most popular type is Edam, which is a mild yellow cheese that comes in a ball,” Matta said. “We also have low fat Edam which tastes the same, but has a harder consistency and a third less fat.”
Other types of cheeses that are made at MSU include cheddar, a medium to sharp yellow cheese; vallagret, a white Norwegian-style Swiss cheese; and jalape¤o pepper, a processed cheese mixed with jalape¤o peppers. The factory also makes cheddar and jalape¤o pepper processed cheese spreads.
Because the cheeses can be bought not only at the sales store, but also by order form, Matta said that the MSU cheeses are sold to people throughout the United States.
“We sell a lot to alumni, students and Mississippi residents, but especially at Christmas we ship a lot of the cheeses out of state,” Matta said.
A printable order form can be found on the MAFES cheese store Web site, (http://msucares.com/
cheese/index03.html) but Matta said that by the first of the year they hope to have new online ordering process where customers can order and pay online.
“We expect our sales to be about the same after the new online ordering,” Matta said. “But this just makes it more convenient for customers, and we will not have to advertise as much.”
Hall said that even though the popularity has grown, the purpose of the factory is still to teach students about making cheese.
“Our purpose is not to make a lot of money off of the cheeses,” Hall said. “This factory is a very important research tool for students. They get to have hands-on experience and they get to see what cheese-making is like.”
“The factory is self supporting,” Hall said. “The money from the sales supports the company and pays salaries.”
Hall said that the school began making cheese in 1938 when the department head, F.H. Herzer, who the building is now named after, decided to begin manufacturing cheese to draw attention to the school.
Head of the food science and technology department Charles White explained the process of making cheese.
“The raw milk that we use comes to the dairy from the MSU campus,” White said. “It is then pasteurized before it goes into the cheese vat. We add good bacteria to it, along with the rennet to separate the curds from the whey, and then it is cut into tiny square pieces by stretching it through cutters. From that point the process is different depending on the type of cheese.”
Food science and technology professor emeritus Joe Cardwell said that there are a lot of small tasks involved as well.
“Before you can do anything with the milk, you have to do a taste test on it,” Cardwell said. “If the cow has been in a pasture with onions or bitterweeds then you can taste it in the milk, and you definitely don’t want that in the cheese.”
A device that Cardwell said is very helpful in the factory is the tri-process machine.
“This machine separates, clarifies and standardizes milk,” Cardwell said. “It can change the fat content by taking out any fat that is not needed.”
Cardwell described the cheese -making process as “art.”
“Cheese-making is a matter of art,” Cardwell said. “The art of the cheese-maker determines the yield and how good the cheese will be,” he added.
“It takes 10 pounds of raw milk to make one pound of cheese,” Cardwell said. “A good cheese maker will stay very close to those yields, but one that isn’t so good could lose a lot of cheese in the process.”
In addition to selling cheeses the MAFES store also sells ice cream, milk, butter and meat, all processed on the MSU campus.