Dalbo Plant Is Gouda At Making Grate Cheese | Local News

The Dairy Farmers of America plant in Dalbo employs 100 workers in its 750,000-square-foot facility, where it dries cheeses as well as adding specific ingredients to a variety of Italian cheeses.

Marion Bidron serves as Plant Manager for the DFA plant in Dalbo.

Inside a refrigerated room at the DFA's Dalbo plant, cheese is waiting to be dried and seasoned to the desires of a client.

The Dairy Farmers of America plant in Dalbo employs 100 workers in its 750,000-square-foot facility, where it dries cheeses as well as adding specific ingredients to a variety of Italian cheeses.

Marion Bidron serves as Plant Manager for the DFA plant in Dalbo.

Inside a refrigerated room at the DFA's Dalbo plant, cheese is waiting to be dried and seasoned to the desires of a client.

As County Road 47 curves westward into the town of Dalbo, the small unincorporated village nestled between Princeton and Cambridge in the northwest corner of Isanti County, a large building emerges across from the Dusty Eagle Bar and Grill.

Many locals know little about the plant, which is owned by Dairy Farmers of America. Some remember its previous owner, Dairy Concepts; some think it belongs to Land O’ Lakes, although that company left decades ago.

“When I came here, I didn’t know such a facility was here,” said Plant Manager Marion Bidron. “I lived in Princeton, and I was driving to a job in Minneapolis – and I didn’t know this facility was here.”

What’s more, some are confused with what takes place at the plant. Bidron is careful to point out that the plant does not make cheese, but instead processes cheese into its final form.

The one thing Bidron wants locals to know is that the company is closely connected to the farmers and agriculture of the area.

“We are providing food for people,” she said. “When you can show your family at a store, ‘I made that,’ that can be something you can be proud of. Knowing all of this is local is very rewarding. It’s all connected.”

The Dalbo plant was constructed in 1972 by Land O’ Lakes, the Arden Hills-based company best known for its butter. This plant originally focused on making soft Italian cheese, so it was built to receive milk from area dairy farmers. Roughly 12 years later, it was converted into a cheddar cheese plant, and in 1994 it ceased operations.

Two years later it reopened, but the plant no longer made cheese; instead, it began processing Italian cheeses such as parmesan, Asiago, fontina and Romano.

That is what it does today, receiving its cheese from a Dairy Farmers of America plant in Zumbrota or a plant in South Dakota.

“If you are a cheese-maker, you are going to receive milk every day and turn that milk into cheese,” said Bidron, who was born in France . “To process cheese means we receive blocks of cheese – Italian cheese in the U.S. comes in 42-pound blocks – and we grind it, dry it, add some ingredients based on what the client wants, then pack it however the client wants.”

In 2005, the plant changed owners to Swiss Valley Farms; five years later, Dairy Concepts took over the facility. For many people, that remains the plant’s name, even though Dairy Farmers of America acquired the plant in 2018.

DFA employs 20,000 workers in its 80 facilities around the country. The Dalbo plant has 100 employees in a 750,000-square-foot facility; Bidron said it operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and is manned by workers living mainly in Cambridge, Princeton or Mora.

Bidron said she is proud of her association with DFA, which is connected to such well-known brands as Kemps and Borden, among others.

“We are owned by farmers – 6,000 families around the U.S.,” Bidron said of the company. “So we work to bring added value to the milk for our clients and our farmers.”

Bidron explained that her plant does three things to the cheese it receives: It dries the cheese, it adds ingredients based on the specifications of each client, and it packages the cheese for use by consumers, restaurants and businesses.

When Bidron says her plant “dries” the cheese, she means the incoming cheese measures at 32 percent moisture. After drying, that percentage will drop to somewhere between 11 percent and 20 percent, depending on the desires of the client.

“We extract the moisture from the cheese to allow it to stay at room temperature and extend its shelf life,” she said. “That will maintain its flavor and allow customers to use it longer.”

As for creating a specific type of cheese, Bidron said each client has a unique formula that includes the dryness of the cheese and additives that are a trade secret.

As for packaging, the Dalbo plant can create cases that weigh as much as 50 pounds, or package it into plastic jars that are 16, 8 and 3 ounces in size to sell to consumers. Fresh-grated cheese usually is placed in packages that range in size from 5 to 30 pounds, which are used by commercial clients such as food processors and restaurants.

The plant also produces organic, kosher and halal products. The requirements for halal products are based on the Quran, the Muslim holy book; kosher regulations are based on the Torah, the Jewish holy book.

Surprisingly, the onset of COVID-19 in March of 2020 had little to no effect on the plant itself.

“When you are in the dairy business, the bacterial aspect of your product is critical,” Bidron said. “We already had in place good practices to maintain barriers, sanitation barriers. We have sanitizer everywhere, and in the dairy industry a lot of the good practices already were here. …

“But people were affected, and we wanted to make sure everybody was safe. We wore masks, and we had additional sanitation processes – not for the product, but for our people, to keep them safe.”

As for production, the Dalbo plant was fortunate that it created cheese for retail consumers, whose demand rose as people stopping going to restaurants.

“Retail sales went crazy as people bought more to make their own meals rather than going to restaurants,” Bidron said. “We worked with our suppliers to make sure we could do what was best to handle their demand.”

That does not mean there were no problems – some of which still remain.

One of the issues the Dalbo plant must deal with is pallets. Yes, the flat structures that allow businesses to store and move products efficiently come with issues.

“There are two types of pallet companies – GMA and Chep pallets – and clients have a specification as to what type of pallet they want to have their product shipped with,” Bidron said. “Those pallets are not the same size, so it is important to get the right size to fit on their racks. You can’t exchange one for the other.

“There also are requirements based on the country; we export, and some countries only use a certain type of pallet. So you have to follow the regulations.”

The current economy has created shortages – and not only for pallets.

“For our production you have cheese, you have other ingredients, you have packaging, and you have people,” Bidron said. “What has been most challenging the past two years is that it’s not projectible. When we order something, we agree on a lead time with our clients. With the supply difficulties, those lead times can change.”

The company has had to develop back-ups to limit the potential problems a shortage might cause.

“For example, let’s take the caps [on the tops of the cheese bottles] – the caps are unique, and if I don’t have caps, I can’t send the products out,” Bidron said. “One of our suppliers came to us and said, ‘We see some tension on the market, but we have some back-up [caps to use].’ And pleasantly, the back-ups worked.”

The company was not as fortunate when it came to the film that covers the packaging of the products.

“Our supplier told us that it would take six weeks to supply film, and then had to change it to 14 weeks – and I only had a 10-week supply,” Bidron said. “Shutting down the line was not an option.”

Bidron found a way to solve that problem, but she also has decided to increase stock levels in case another supply hiccup would threaten to shut down production.

Even that angle comes with potential pitfalls, though.

“What if the client wants to change the formula, the recipe?” Bidron said.

Those challenges will remain, at least for now. But Bidron said a bigger task will be to deal with changes in the workforce.

“The industry is not well-known – people don’t leave school thinking they will enter this industry,” she said. “How we attract people and show them we have opportunities is important.

“Food is critical; it’s something we all use, but we don’t think about it until it’s not there. This is a business that is not going anywhere, but we’re not appealing to a younger generation.

“How we can meet the requirements of our clients, while bringing a good work-life balance to our employees, is a challenge. Before the pandemic, this was just a job. Now we have to think outside the box to satisfy people, give them a good work-life balance.”

The DFA Dalbo plant currently has employment openings. Go to www.dfamilk.com/careers and search for opportunities at Dalbo.

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