Village Squire, 1978-01, Page 9Pine River Cheese and Butter Co-operative has recently undergone a major expansion. The Targe
.building at the left in the picture has improved the cheese making set up.
A matter
of taste
For fans of Pine River cheese,
all other brands
are second best
Thanksgiving weekend along the Lake Huron shoreline is
traditionally the time for families to make one last trip to the
cottage before winter. It's the time they put the boat away and
drain the water pipes and generally get the place ready for the
rugged winter ahead.
For many, there's another Thanksgiving tradition: going to the
Pine River Cheese Factory to stock up for the winter. Last
Thanksgiving, for instance, people lined up to buy $10,000 worth
of cheese over the weekend.
It says a lot for the popularity of the cheese produced by the
little cheese factory on the edge of the Pine River near Lake
Huron. To those who grew up with it, there's just no cheddar
cheese quite like Pine River. That loyalty has been built up over
nearly a century.
Back in 1885 a group of farmers in the area got together to
form a co-operative to produce cheese. They were not doing
anything particularly unusual at the time. Farmers in
communities all across Ontario were faced with the problem of
having a surplus of milk when their cows went on grass each
summer. Little cheese factories were springing up all over the
province located at convenient points and serving farmers in a
10-15 mile radius in the days when transportation was a major
limiting factor.
Some 1500 shares were sold in the co-operative. The first
factory was built at a cost of $1594. Farmers delivered their milk
to the plant and shared in the profits according to how much milk
they produced and how many shares they held. The factory
produced cheese during the summer and closed during the
winter. A herd of pigs was kept on a farm nearby which was
fattened on whey a by-product of the cheesemaking operation.
The practice was discontinued in 1914.
The plant celebrated its 50th anniversary in the heart of the
depression years in 1935. The cheese business was in trouble all
over but Pine River was one of the stronger members of the
industry. Business for the previous year totalled $9,369.47. In
1934 a young man named Glen Martin moved from Molesworth
where he had begun his cheesemaking career.
VILLAGE SQUIRE/JANUARY 1978, 7.