Marathon gets ready to start production

The new Marathon Cheese plant in Mountain Home will begin operation this week when the first shipment of cheese from Oregon arrives.

By the end of next week the first of the plant's production lines will be up and running, initially packaging cheese for the Tillamook product line.

"This is exciting," said Plant Manager Jay Phillips. "We can hardly wait to get started."

Phillips, who has more than 30 years of experience in the cheese industry, from being a worker in a plant to plant management, said he is aware that the community of Mountain Home is looking forward to the plant beginning operation. "We want them to be excited. This is good for Mountain Home. It means a lot of home-grown jobs. We want the people here to feel ownership in this (plant)."

In recent weeks and months the plant's first workers have been sent back to the headquarters plant of Marathon Cheese in Green Bay, Wisc., for training, and some representatives from that plant will be visiting here to provide more training.

Initially, the facility will begin with 30-40 workers on only five of the 15 lines the 215,000-square-foot plant will have available, but those numbers will rise over the next year "to upwards of 100 people," Phillips said, and go beyond that in succeeding years. Eventually, up to 500 people could potentially be employed at the packaging plant.

The facility does not make cheese, but rather packages cheese already produced in other locations for a wide variety of companies. Refrigerated storage facilities at the plant allow it to build up inventory prior to packaging.

Phillips said the company would run only a few items initially, but as it grows in production capacity it will hire additonal employees.

After supervising the final stages of construction, geting all the supplies and logistices ready to go (with the help of the Wisconsin headquarters) and hiring the intial workforce, "I'm ready to go," Phillips said.

"Now that we've got all the construction behind us, we can focus on getting the product run."

Phillips spent most of his career working for Schreiber Food in Green Bay, but took the opportunity to run the Marathon plant in Mountain Home when it was offered. "They're really great people to work with," he said.

An open house of the facility for people instrumental in bringing the plant to Mountain Home will be held in March.