Village Squire, 1979-11, Page 13Day explains, "We needed the room and we had to replace the
churn. We had a good market for cream --we sold it to the
Brussels Creamery." That year for the first time, it started
making specialty cheeses --brick, Italian frulano, and colby.
Quotas, a system to regulate cheese and milk production, were
introduced in 1971. This system drastically changed the cheese
industry. Quotas were given by the amount of cheddar produced.
Since the company was producing little cheddar at that time,
they were given only a small quota --two million pounds.
Harold Douglas explains, "The company made more cheddar
in 1900 than we do now, because of the quota."
The company's present quota is 1,225,000 pounds. No quota is
bought for specialty cheese. The company can get all the milk it
needs if it is available --but they have to buy the milk at a higher
price.
Mr. Douglas says. "85 percent of our present production is
mozzarella cheese. We supply about 35 percent of the needs for
cheese to Mother's Pizza. Most of what we sell to them is
mozzarella. We also sell mostly cheddar to some of the health
food stores.
"We're trying to sell something different now to our
customers. We sell basic cold cuts at our retail counter, but we
also have pastrami, beerham, hambologna, honey hams,
krakowska, peppercorn, and spiced ham."
Bonnie Hymers, clerk at Atwood Cheese, says the polish ham
and pastrami are the most popular. Besides selling honey,
fudge, and caramel corn, they sell different types of nuts.
Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays are the biggest days for
selling cheese. Mr. Douglas estimates that 60 percent of their
sales are made on those days. They are open Monday to
Saturday 8-5 and Sundays 10-5.
Mr. Douglas says that cheese is bought year round. But July
and August are especially busy because of the cottagers passing
through and October is busy because of the hu:iters, fishermen,
and Thanksgiving. At Christmas, they sell to the Yukon and
Yellowknife as well as the States.
Restricting imports on cheese has helped the Canadian variety
cheese market. Mr. Day says. "Europeans in Canada used to
prefer only imported cheese. Now they have changed to the
Canadian type of specialty cheese. It wasn't easy to change
them".
Farmers owned most of the first cheese factories. There were
as many as 2,000 plants operating in Ontario at one time. Now
there are less than 100.
About 1952, many of them closed because cheddar cheese
price was low. Mr. Day says, "We came close to closing too."
They survived because they produced specialty cheese and they
built up retail sales.
Mr. Day listed a few of the many places where the cheese
factories closed down: Wellesley, Molesworth, Newry,
Maitland, Blyth, Donegal, Britton, Carthage, Marion,
Palmerston, and Wallace Cheese and Butter Factory.
The Atwood Cheese Company celebrated its anniversary with
a dance and banquet at the Elma Community Centre. Lorne
Henderson, Minister of Agriculture for Ontario, was the
speaker.
In 1961 the farmers wanted to sell the cheese company. And
they gave first chance to Fred Day. the manager and
cheesemaker at that time. For the next 16 years he was the sole
owner of the company. In 1977 he sold it to Harold Douglas, his
son-in-law, and the National Cheese Company in Toronto.
The present owners are planning to build a manufacturing
area to increase production 20 percent. They have started
research on new cheese products. Mr. Douglas added, "The
cheese industry is now catering to more pre-packaged items --for
example the biscuit and cheese snack. It is more convenient. It
costs more for the customer, but a lot of them want it."
Today more and more people are freezing cheese successfully.
Slow thawing in the refrigerator prevents crumbly cheese. Mr.
Day tried freezing Fontina cheese. He found it tasted better after
he kept it two weeks in the refrigerator. He said, "It gets back to
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November 1979, Village Squire 11