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Marathon Cheese hosts grand opening
The grand opening of Marathon Cheese, located at 3000 N.W. Marathon Way, was held Thursday, April 12.
Marathon Cheese has been in the cheese packaging business for over 54 years and has become a leader in the industry. The company was founded in 1952 by Ray and Marie Goldbach with the original production line set up in their basement.
Today, Marathon Cheese has become one of the largest independent cheese packaging companies in the world.
Marathon Cheese packaged products ship to the 48 continuous states, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
There are four Marathon Cheese locations: Marathon, WI (headquarters), Medford WI, Booneville, MI and Mountain Home.
The new package facility here in Mountain Home is 212,000 square feet total. Refrigeration takes up 90,000 square feet of that, packaging is a total of 100,000 square feet, and another 10,000 square feet is office space.
The Mountain Home plant is not just a packaging plant, but it also serves as a shipping and receiving center.
The Mountain Home plant works with suppliers in the western region of the United States.
The grand opening began with welcomes, congratulations and remarks by some of the people involved with the long process of building and opening the plant in Mountain Home.
Ron Swearingen, Director of Economic Development of Mountain Home, was the Master of Ceremonies and welcomed those who attended the event as well as the guest speakers.
Mayor Joe B. McNeal offered his congratulations to Marathon Cheese and presented Maria Goldbach with a key to the city of Mountain Home.
"[To] All of our city employees for all their hard work. I thank you for helping make this happen," said Mayor McNeal.
Roger B. Madsen, Director of Idaho Commerce and Labor, described Mountain Home as a "truly wonderful community," adding, "We welcome you (Marathon Cheese) home to Idaho. Congratulations and thank you very much."
Madsen also read a letter sent by Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter who gave his "sincere congratulations and best wishes."
Both the President and CEO of Marathon Cheese offered remarks at the grand opening. Marathon Cheese President LaVern Stencil said it "takes good people."
There are over 1,800 people employed at the four Marathon Cheese locations, and about 20 percent of those employees have been with the company for over 25 years.
As of now, (four months after opening) there are only three productions lines running at the Mountain Home Marathon Cheese plant.
By mid year, five production lines will be running and at the end of the year, seven production lines will be running.
Right now, first shift is the only shift working, but in about two weeks a second shift should be running said Stencil.
Approximately 550 employees eventually will be employed there.
CEO of Marathon Cheese, John Skoug, said while he was looking at the pictures on the back wall of the different stages of the factory, the picture that hit him was the picture of the flat ground with some sagebrush.
Skoug said that is the picture of their "great find" that they took back to show Marie Goldbach. "I truly know that we made the right decision on that," said Skoug.
Skoug said that Ray Goldbach, the Marathon Cheese co-founder who passed away almost ten years ago, had always wanted to have a plant out west to serve the West Coast, he said.
Skoug recognized and thanked Wayne Sheppard, city engineer and his team, Dan Scott, who donated the land, the Idaho Commerce and Labor, H&M Construction Company, Inc., Donnie Tears, site superintendent, the new employees of Mountain Home and others.
A ribbon cutting took place shortly after all remarks were made. Then tours of the plant and hors d'oeuvres and refreshments, compliments of H&M Construction Company, Inc. followed.
H&M Constructions Company, Inc., which built the plant, had to move 1,200,000 wheel barrels full of dirt and rock. There are 12 miles of wire, including 5 miles of conduit running through the building, and the building's refrigeration unit weighs 576 tons.
Tours were offered, but before entering the plant production line facility, everyone was required to put on white coats, hair/beard nets and gloves, as the plant operates in a virtual "clean room" environment that would make NASA proud.
Once through the production line doors, all those taking the tour had to sanitize their shoes by walking on a mat with sanitizer on it. Everyone also had to sanitize their hands at a sanitizing station. Even gloves were sanitized. The massive plant was immaculately clean.
There were three production lines running at the time of the tour.
The first production line was shredding brand cheese.
Employees unwrapped large blocks of cheese and placed it on the machine's cheese cutter. The cheese was cut into cubes and then went through the shredder. After going through the shredder the cheese was sprinkled with an anti-caking agent that kept the cheese from clumping.
The shredded cheese then went up a conveyor belt to a scale. Once at the proper weight the cheese was put into brand packages and boxed up to be shipped. The second production line was shredding cheese for restaurants. That production line was going through the same steps as production line one, but it was packaging the cheese in much larger bags.
The third production line was slicing brand cheese. Once again, employees would unwrap large blocks of cheese and place it onto the machine.
However with that production line, the machine then automatically sliced the cheese while slicing and placing paper sheets in between each piece of cheese.
The blocks of sliced cheese then went down a conveyor belt to test for quality of appearance and weight. If the blocks were not of proper quality, the conveyor belt automatically puts them to the side. Employees then correct the problem and send the cheese on its way.
After viewing all the production lines, the tour went into the refrigeration room where the blocks of cheese and finished products were stored.
But before the cheese is even used it is tested by a cheese grader, who pulls out a plug of cheese to test it for texture, moisture and taste. Stencil said quality assurance begins the moment the cheese is received.
Everything also is bar coded and tracked from the moment it is received until after it is shipped.
All the production line machines are cleaned at the end of use and then swabbed to make sure there are no contaminants such as E. coli or mold on the equipment.
The plant contains its own in-house shop to fix any equipment that might break and an in-house lab to test the swabs from the machinery.
Bug lamps can be found throughout the building to make sure there are no insects that could contaminate the cheese. Rodent traps are also throughout the inside and outside walls of the plant.
All that is done to secure the quality of the cheese.
To purchase Marathon Cheese products, a cheese store is located in the front of the Marathon Cheese plant. The cheese store is open Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 11a.m.-3p.m. Shirts, hats, golf balls, bags, jackets mugs and more also can be purchased from the cheese store.