June is National Dairy Month and living in Oregon we celebrate by visiting the Tillamook Cheese Factory. Tillamook is situated southwest of Portland, OR. For those who may know, Tillamook cheese is some fantastic cheese and I think is distributed now nationwide at all Safeway stores. If it’s not, it should be!
Happy Cows Come From Tillamook, Oregon
Tillamook is largely known for their dairy products and cattle industry. The cows in these neck of the woods are locally raised and grazing animals. If you know NW Oregon, you know its trees and more trees. And the areas that don’t have trees; the western side of the state, has fields full of vegetation which is what you have in Tillamook. With the moisture brought on from the ocean, its allows green fields to flourish allowing cows to graze on healthy greens.
I am sure with an abundance of food; cows can produce more milk than animals stressed out and crammed into pens. The reason I guess I feel strongly on this issue is my experience with seeing cows raised naturally and cows that are raised for commerce (commercial) purposes which makes me think about the quality of product they produce. I believe in feeding my family the best and I know when I buy dairy that is produced locally I can get the quality I expect from my local farmers.In other words we love Tillamook!!
Our family had to take a tour of the Tillamook Cheese Factory. It is the actually factory, and it also has a tour area with viewing of the facility. You can see the machines that cut, slice, and package the cheese. Also are the large mixing tanks used to create their tasty dairy products. They have fresh from the source ice cream in I think 30 or more flavors and a full shop with every product they offer along with many hand crafted items local to Oregon and some from Washington. Great treats.
We got some local things including candied smoked salmon, Handmade raspberry jam, natural batter for fish, honey glazed local jerky, Alpenrose Swiss chocolate milk (local milk company, best you can find), and some other items. All of these things are from Oregon. There really is a large selection of good quality foods that we can find here in Oregon. It does cost a little more, but makes me think more about wasting food that we prepare. It’s a good to practice conservation. We also got a Loafy pin signifying our trip with Kaila to the cheese factory. We have picked her out a pin from every place she has taken for a trip, and she is gaining a large collection.
It was a great trip and since June is National Dairy month I found it only fitting to show off a local spot that we are so proud of. If you shop Safeway stores look for deals this month on your favorite Tillamook products!
I am a compensated Safeway brand ambassador, although I am passionate about serving healthy foods to my family. I am also just as passionate about my local commerce and am proud to show off our happy Oregon cows.
Looks like fun. 🙂 I’ll bet the girls enjoyed it!
SO fun!! We LOVE Tillamook cheese around here! Anything else just doesn’t taste right. If we ever do a trip in Oregon, we are SO there! 🙂
On my must do list is to take my kids to a cheese factory. I can’t imagine how awesome it would be to be surrounded by cheese. Trying not to drool 😉
Sounds like a fun experience! My mom was once part of of a Tillamook Mac and Cheese contest – great company!
Looks like fun! I agree that it’s really nice seeing animals that get to “roam free.”
What a great place. I think I will be trying their cheese!
This is super! My daughter and I both love cheese, so this would be a great outing for us!
I think Tillamook has the best sharp cheddar cheese to go with my Triscuits and apples.
That sounds like an awesome trip! It looks so pretty there, and I bet the tour was neat. I never thought of Tillamook this way before, I am going to give them some more thought as a brand 🙂