Checking Up On Tillamook

About a week ago, I shared a story about a Tweet I wrote back in 2014 that recently caught the eye of Tillamook, a company of whose dairy products I am a particular fan. 

It was a Tweet about cheese. 

And the Tillamook folks asked me if I would allow them to use the Tweet in a marketing piece. 

Spoilers: I said yes. 

In response to that story, one of my readers sent me a comment in which she cautioned me about supporting Tillamook. She told me her specific concerns about Tillamook. And she linked me to a post in a personal blog called Good Stuff NW that examined these concerns in more detail.

To be sure, I'm glad she commented. I'm pleased that she felt comfortable engaging me in a healthy give-and-take about my post, and I love her passion, intensity, and deep desire to do good in this world. 

My husband's grandfather was a widowed dairy farmer in northeastern Ohio. In between the twice-daily milkings, George raised five children, kept the farm running, and went to church every Sunday. By all accounts, he was a gentle, quiet, thoughtful man, and he cared very much for his cows.

And even though I love cheese and ice cream and all the other deliciousness that comes from milk, I also love cows. 

I love their big brown eyes.
I love their trusting dispositions.
I love the way they moo. 

I would never want them to suffer.

I would never want to do business with a company that causes them to suffer. 

And while I certainly would be disappointed to learn that Tillamook treats cows poorly or mismanages their business in any way, I would rather know the truth than live in ignorance. 

Two of George's children chose to continue on in the dairy farm life. His middle son bought the farm across the road, and his younger daughter married a local cowman named Norman The other three, including my father-in-law, moved into town.

Tillamook, if you don't know, is a strong dairy brand named for its home base, little Tillamook County, Oregon. Since 1909, dairy farmers in this pastoral community have worked as a cooperative to proudly provide milk to Tillamook-owned processing plants where local employees whip up countless loaves of cheese and cartons of ice cream.Their tag line, "Farmer owned since forever. Doing things right since always" sums up their folksy,down-to-earth philosophy as well as their highly effective marketing strategy. 

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So I pored over the post from Good Stuff NW, and made a list of the major concerns noted there, as well as the issues my reader laid out in her comment.

Where do the Tillamook cows live?
Where are Tillamook products made?
Are the animals subjected to abusive conditions?
What is the impact of all these cows on the environment?
What is the impact of Tillamook's business practices on small farms?
What is the impact of Tillamook's business practices on the Tillamook community?

I decided to seek out answers to these questions. And the logical starting place, I deduced, was to simply ask Tillamook to respond to the concerns mentioned in the Good Stuff NW post. So I dropped them a hey howdy at their Contact Us page, and this is the response I received:

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Hi Diane, 

Thank you so much for you taking the time to reach out to us directly about this – we really appreciate that!

Yes, we are aware of a blog post circulating online from 2017 that we think includes some one-sided misrepresentations. There are always two sides to a story, and we appreciate that you’re open to hearing ours.

It is true that not all of our milk and products originate from Tillamook County, and we’ve never hidden from that fact. We’re growing beyond Tillamook’s borders but never beyond its values. It’s important to remember that as a co-op, we are farmer-owned and farmer-led. Always have been, always will be. Being a co-op means that the 80 farming families in Tillamook County, who are members, are not just part of our high-quality milk supply, they actually own and lead the company and benefit directly from its growth and success. In fact, they depend on it. Our profits are either reinvested in our business, contributed to our communities, or distributed to the farming families in Tillamook. Our farmer-owners insist on working with only best-in-class business partners including dairy farmers, production facilities and distribution centers. If they don’t meet our standards, they don’t work with Tillamook.

After more than 100 years and growing consumer demand for our products, we’re making more products than ever before right where it all began, and that’s in Tillamook County. But, while there’s no limit to the ingenuity, hard work and commitment of Tillamook County’s people, there is a limit to its natural resources. It’s an environmentally sensitive area and natural resources are constrained. There are just 23,000 acres suitable for pasture, and it’s not feasible to manage more than about 30,000 milking cows in Tillamook. That’s why our farmer owners decided more than 15 years ago to partner with a large, innovative dairy farm – Threemile Canyon Farms – located near our second cheesemaking facility in Boardman, Oregon.

While a large dairy farm may not look the same as a much smaller one, we can assure you that every farm we work with is held to the same strict quality and animal care standards that our farmer-owners adhere to in Tillamook County. The size of the farm does not dictate the quality of care. All of the farmers who supply milk for Tillamook products have a commitment to quality, and that means taking good care of their cows because not only is it their livelihood, but it is also the right thing to do. An independent and rigorous audit conducted recently at Threemile Canyon Farms by the nationally recognized Validus Dairy Animal Welfare Expert Committee resulted in the first-ever 100% score for a dairy operation. The score validates the daily commitment the farm makes to keep their cows healthful and comfortable.

Threemile Canyon Farms also is a leader in environmental stewardship and sustainable agriculture, and they have taken many steps over the past nearly two decades to help maintain the natural resources around them, including for example, building a zero-discharge waste management system, reducing reliance on fossil fuels by investing in renewable energy projects like wind turbines, and building a methane digester to generate electricity from waste byproducts, to name just a few.

Growing our brand through strong partnerships like this one is the way we’ve been able to sustain our farmer-owners and the farming way of life in Tillamook County for generations to come. That growth is also what provides more opportunities for our 800+ employees and hundreds more that work on our owners’ and partners’ farms, who all live and work in Oregon. And, that growth also enables us to invest millions of dollars back into our communities to help them grow and thrive. So, yes, we are growing, but we are doing so in a responsible way that enables us to bring more high-quality dairy products to more people, in the Northwest and beyond. Our farmer-owners would have it no other way.

It’s very important to us that we listen to the people that buy Tillamook products and support our farmer-owners, so if you have any additional comments, please let me know. Again, thank you for being so kind as to reach out and hear out our perspective.

Casey – The Tillamook Team

On my wedding day, Uncle Norman left his cows in order to make the overnight trip from eastern Ohio to Chicago. I knew that was a huge deal, and seeing him at the church, complete with his enamel cow pin in his suit jacket lapel, as I walked down the aisle was one of the most touching moments of the day. 

I read and cross-referenced this letter to the Tillamook FAQ and other information on the Tillamook pages, to ensure that Tillamook was telling me the same story that they share on their website. Check

I visited the home page of Validus Services to determine if they were indeed auditors of animal welfare. Check.

I spent more than an hour exploring the Threemile Canyon Farms website, looking for evidence of the claims that they are concerned aobut environmental stewardship and sustainable agriculture. Check. 

I found several recent articles validating the reputation of Threemile Canyon Farms: Dairy Strives To Keep Improving from 2018. and State's Largest Dairy Runs On Closed Loop from 2016. Check, check.

And I explored several posts (like this one and this one) on the Threemile Canyon Farms blog that stress how important it is for consumers who have concerns about where their food comes from to fact check with actual agricultural professionals. And check.

Grandpa George and Uncle Norman are both long gone, bless their souls. My husband's family is, at least for now, out of the dairy farming business. But I hope, from their vantage point in heaven, these men are looking down at the technologically savvy and highly sophisticated dairy operation at Threemile Canyon Farms. I do believe they are smiling. 

And now, I am satisfied.

I understand why the Tillamook cows live where they do, and why Tillamook products are made where they are made. There's nothing misleading or shady about Tillamook's business practices; they make good sense. 

I believe that Tillamook cows live happy, healthy lives. 

I admire the many ways in which Tillamook farms, especially Threemile Canyon Farms, is working to protect the environment from the impact of oh, so many cows.

I trust that Tillamook's farmer-owners pour resources back into their communities and work to be responsible stewards and business owners. 

And I get that some people still prefer not to eat dairy products. Some people feel uncomfortable with animals in our food chain. Some people choose a strictly vegan diet. 

I'm totally cool with that. 

As for me, I will keep on enjoying that amazing Tillamook cheddar cheese and thanking the sweet cows who make it for me. 

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These photos were taken on George's old dairy farm near Oberlin, Ohio. 

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What started as an off-the-cuff tweet back in 2014 led to an interesting offer, a dairy industry fact-finding mission, and in the end, a cheesy gift. Here's the full story:

My Tillamook Tweet

Checking Up On Tillamook

Thanks, Tillamook