Tag Archives: cheese

The food plant I was at for the past two days was a cheese manufacturing plant. They make mozzarella cheese to be more precise. The place is huge. Imagine a large mall but dedicated solely to making cheese. It was probably eight miles of walking each day just to get around the place.

I was surprised, first of all, by the fact that this privately owned company built this plant out of pocket, with no loans. Half a billion dollars is a lot of money to shell out for a business venture without taking a loan.

The second thing that surprised me was how clean the place was for a food plant. Everyone requires washing hands before entering the manufacturing center of a food plant, but here everyone must enter a closed hallway and receive an air shower to remove any dirt particles that may cling to your body. Special shoes and clothes, designated for work are not allowed off the premises, except to be cleaned. I was very impressed and glad to know that at least this food plant is trying very hard to produce food without curly hairs in it.

View from the roof of the plant.

Stainless steel is primarily used as it is durable and clean.

6 pound blocks of mozzarella floating down a brine solution.

Mmmmm, cheese!

This is cheddar flavored and colored mozzarella.

This last picture really caught my interest. Why would anyone flavor and color mozzarella like cheddar? I asked the workers why they wouldn’t just use cheddar. Cheddar clumps up into a blob when melted. Mozzarella cheese stretches when warm. I’m sure you have all seen commercials for Hot Pockets and Taco Bell, where the melted mixture of multiple cheeses stretches as they split apart the food. This is this stuff.

This trip was not without its souvenirs, mostly the injury kind. I burned myself within the first fifteen minutes of starting my work, but this isn’t a typical hot soup burn at 150 degrees that you’ve probably all experienced at one time. This is an instantaneous, flesh melting 350 degrees. It’s really difficult to avoid touching hot things in tight crawl spaces, and it sucks. My head has bruises from wearing a hard hat and safety goggles for two days. My shoulders and back hurt from lugging around twenty pounds of equipment over eight miles a day. Fortunately, the smell of cheese isn’t one of the souvenirs I brought back with me.

I am glad to be back and hopefully someone else can go in my place the next time work is needed in one of these giant food plants.