State Of The Cheese: Valley Seeing End To Dairy Profit Freefall

The cheese industry treasures people such as Joyce Tschetter.

During a lunch stop last week at the Hilmar Cheese Co. visitor center, the
Minnesota resident rattled off the product’s virtues.

“It’s very versatile,” she said. “It improves Mexican food. It improves
American. It improves French. It improves Italian.”

Photo Caption: San Joaquin Gold cheese wheels, ready to be cut up for packaging
are shown Thursday, Oct. 12, 2006, at the Fiscalini Cheese Co. in Modesto,
Calif. Aided by an abundant supply of milk, an increasing nationwide appetite
for cheese and some savvy marketing, manufacturers such as Fiscalini are
contributing to a production boom that could soon propel California past
Wisconsin to become the nation’s top cheese producer.

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Al Golub

To read the rest of this story please go to: The Modesto Bee