Milton, IA – Milton Creamery, founded by the Musser family 15 years ago, is the result of a dream to help others in the agriculture world and beyond, adding value to the milk for dairy farmers, creating jobs in rural Iowa and bringing people a product created with art and passion. Over the years, they have won numerous blue ribbons for their authentic cheddar-style cheeses all made with milk from small, local and family-owned farms.
Even with the pandemic of 2020 the mission has been steadfast: help others by providing a viable and economically sound solution for the small, local, and family-owned dairy farms in our community. Over the past year, Milton Creamery has continued to pick up every drop of milk the family farms have to offer and work so hard for. They actually took on more farms for no other reason than the alternative could mean losing their farms.
But looking back, it was not long ago that the Mussers were dairy farmers themselves, so they understand the industry intimately. Rufus Musser III enjoyed farming but always knew he wanted to do something more. He was the driving force behind starting a cheesemaking operation, and through four years of meetings, feasibility studies and business structure conversations, it became a reality. On May 8, 2006 the first batch of cheese was created.
Less than a year later the Mussers started to dabble in the specialty cheese world and as luck would have it, Prairie Breeze™ came to life. They brought the cheese to the weekly farmers markets and that’s when they knew they really had something special. In 2009 Prairie Breeze was entered into Wisconsin Cheesemakers Associations for the US Cheese Championship and won its first blue ribbon. Prairie Breeze™ has continued to grow in popularity over the years, earning numerous blue ribbons and first place awards from the American Cheese Society, World Cheese Awards and US Championship Cheese Contests.
Rufus “Junior” Musser IV joined the team in 2011 and has been the driving force of growth in the business over the past few years. He manages a team of over 30 employees and early 2020 cut the ribbon on a 17,000 square foot facility expansion with state-of-the-art cutting, packaging and aging rooms.
“We are so happy with what we’ve created over the last 15 years not just for this generation, but the future generations of small family farms in America,” said Rufus “Junior” Musser, co-CEO of Milton Creamery.
Prairie Breeze™ and a number of other award-winning cheeses are available on miltoncreamery.com and in grocery stores and cheese shops across the country. Every purchase helps support small family farms, Milton Creamery’s reason for being from the very beginning.
ABOUT MILTON CREAMERY
Founded in 2006 in Milton, Iowa, Milton Creamery is a family owned business making award-winning artisan cheese based on simple, traditional practices and sourcing all milk from local, small farms within 30 miles of the facility. Their award-winning cheeses include Prairie Breeze™ and Flory’s Truckle. Their commitment to quality and safe food handling is proven as Milton Creamery meets the requirements for SQF Code for Food Manufacturing, Edition 8.1 and SQF Quality Code, Edition 8.1.
