Costco Connection - October 2011

tion doesn’t fully pasteurize the cheese, Tillamook must age the cheese for at least 60 days. “Natural aging really is the key to creat- ing a fuller-flavored, nicely textured cheese,” says Wustenberg. Like good wines, Tillamook’s award-win- ning cheeses sit patiently in temperature-con- trolled aging rooms for months before they’re ready for tasting. And the longer the better: Tillamook’s Vintage White Extra Sharp Cheddar, for instance, takes a full nine to 15 months to develop its intense flavor. Unlike wines, however, which can taste quite different depending on the quality of each year’s grapes, Tillamook works hard to maintain a steadfastly consistent product. “If you bite into a piece of Tillamook cheese today or eight months from now—and whether you buy it at our factory store or at Costco—it will taste exactly the same each time,” says Tillamook president and CEO

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TILLAMOOK

Tillamook already offers a wide range of
cheeses besides its trademark cheddar, and is
slowly marketing them to customers beyond
its Pacific Northwest stronghold—much of
that with Costco’s help. Strunk says Tillamook
may eventually roll out its other dairy prod-
ucts, including ice cream and yogurt, to other
regions of the country.

Harold Strunk.

In keeping with its reliable, farmer-owned character, the company will continue to grow, but slowly and carefully, notes Strunk.

( http://loaflovetour.com). A fleet of cheese-
brick-shaped, retrofitted Volkswagen buses
now visits fairs and special events throughout
the western United States, offering tasters a
little bit of cheesy love (in the form of free
samples) and telling the Tillamook story all
along the way. “It’s the most exciting thing
we’ve done in a really long time,” Strunk tells
The Connection.
“When folks put a piece of our cheese in
their mouths, they just fall in love with it,” says
Godinho. “So that’s really the key to our future:
getting as many people as possible to taste our
product and become Tillamook fans.” C
Tillamook’s Loaf Love
Tour may be coming to your town
( http://loaflovetour.com).

Don’t be fooled by Tillamook’s slow-and-steady business model, though. This is no stick-in-the mud company. In fact, the co-op has embraced social media, including Twitter and Facebook (the company boasts more than 100,000 fans on its Facebook page).