Swiss Valley Farms' plant runs 24/7

Northeastern Iowa was shaped by the glaciers and the Mississippi River, which makes up its eastern border. The landscape here defies the stereotype of Midwestern flatness. Rolling hills yield unexpected delights for motorists negotiating the winding county roads. In Clayton County, as U.S. Highway 18 curves west just outside of Monona, silos appear on the horizon. These are the tallest structures in the county and they belong to Swiss Valley Farms, which operates a cheese and whey powder manufacturing facility in Luana, population 241.

The Luana plant runs 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Swiss Valley Farms considers this to be the flagship among its six facilities. Others are in St. Olaf, Iowa; Minnesota (Spring Valley and Faribault) and Wisconsin (Mindoro and Shullsburg).

The dairy cooperative, headquartered in Davenport, Iowa, uses milk from its farmer-members (see related article on page 54). There are 72 members living in Clayton County and their farms produce more than 101 million pounds of milk a year. The 90-plus workers in Luana process the milk into 27.5 million pounds of Swiss cheese, 16.2 million pounds of whey powder and 5.7 million pounds of cream cheese. Swiss Valley Farms sells these foods locally, throughout the United States and in Asia and Latin America. The co-op’s customers include wholesalers, restaurants and distributors.

Cheesemaking starts with milk. Ten pounds of milk yield one pound of cheese. Luana accepts 20 to 22 milk tankers every day. The four-bay receiving facility can accommodate two semis and two short trucks. There is an on-site lab, registered on the Interstate Milk Shippers list, where technicians screen each delivery for antibiotics and milk components. The lab performs other tests, including in-process testing and final analytical analysis of Swiss cheese, cream cheese and whey products. Every vat of cheese, every blender of cream cheese and every lot of whey powder are sampled to assure the products meet Swiss Valley Farm’s specifications. After all samples have been analyzed, the results are reviewed by the Quality Assurance department. The results are shared at regular technical meetings to keep all departments informed. (External labs perform pathogen testing.)

Swiss Valley Farms acquired the plant in 1967 when it merged with the Northeast Iowa Dairy Cooperative in 1967. Since then, Swiss Valley Farms has expanded the facility several times over the years and keeps investing in new processing equipment that helps assure consistency of product from season to season. A recent investment is an ultra-filtration membrane system which “helps us maintain a consistent yield year round while producing the same quality of cheese,” says plant manager Colin Rowe.

Here’s how an ultra-filtration membrane system maintains consistency: The components in milk vary from winter to summer due to the cow’s stage of lactation. In the summer, low butter fats and proteins lower yields (the milk-to-cheese ratio). The lower solids also affect the attributes of cheese. So cheesemakers turn to milk standardization systems (like ultra-filtration) to even out the seasonal fluctuations in butterfat and proteins. Doing so allows cheesemakers to produce different recipes, like low-fat and high-fat cheese, consistently.

Processing cheese and whey powder

When Dairy Foodsvisited, the plant was making Swiss cheese, cream cheese and whey powder. Jeff Jirik, vice president and general manager of the Natural Cheese division, says Swiss cheese is among the most difficult cheeses to make because of a myriad of environmental factors. First, milk needs to be at the right temperature. Then there are the fermentation and brining processes. Finished cheeses sit for a specific time in a warm room and then are moved to a cold room to stop the aging. After all that, a Swiss cheese maker has to wait 55 to 60 days before he can judge its body, texture and eye formation.

In Luana, the cheesemaking process begins by filling the horizontal cheese vats (HCV) with milk. Cultures are added to the milk, which has been warmed to the correct temperature. From the HCV, curds and whey are separated, with the whey pumped through stainless steel lines to be processed into powder. The cheese curds are pumped to press vats. Here the curds form themselves into a single slab of cheese, 7 inches tall. The slabs are then cut into 32 separate blocks and conveyed to the brining room. After brining, the cheese is moved to a warm room for curing. The final stop is the cold room, which stops the aging. The 100-pound Swiss cheese blocks are shipped to a cut-and-wrap facility in St. Olaf. This facility also has a smoke curing room to create smoked Swiss products.

Swiss Valley Farms processes more than 1 million pounds of milk daily. With a cheese operation on this scale, naturally there is a lot of whey. (“We can’t make it fast enough,” says Jeff Saforek, vice president and general manager of Dairy Ingredients and Export.) Whey is pumped from the cheesemaking rooms to the powder area. Through reverse osmosis, vacuum evaporation processes and spray drying, Swiss Valley Farms creates whey powders that are packaged in plastic-lined 50-pound paper bags. Each pallet of whey (as well as every ingredient, in fact) has an RFID tag for traceability. The whey is sold domestically and exported.

Cream cheese and Neufchatel cheese are two other important products for Swiss Valley Farms. The company makes 1,260-pound batches of cream cheese and packages it in 3-pound boxes and 30- and 50-pound containers for foodservice accounts domestically and abroad. Customers use the cheeses primarily in baking.

Employee safety, food safety

Safety is on the agenda every day of the year at Luana.

“We have a safety committee that meets once a month and reviews all safety concerns and challenges at the plant and implements solutions and alternatives for preventing accidents from happening,” Rowe says.

Hourly and salaried employees from all departments sit on the committee to provide a good mix of experience and knowledge of the plant. In addition to the monthly safety committee meeting, there are weekly discussions that drive home good work habits, and ongoing training.

The company installed ergonomically designed tools and products, such as fatigue mats, larger handles on knifes and scrappers, carts for moving product and vacuum lifts for heavy product lifting. Supervisors rotate employees hourly on their work station to prevent any injury or fatigue.

The Swiss Valley Farms executive management team chartered a Food Defense Team to specifically address concerns of how to keep the facility and the products safe and secure. The team performed a thorough risk analysis and review of existing quality and food safety systems to identify areas of vulnerability regarding product tampering and facility security. The review created specific expectations regarding Food Defense Systems to complement the current quality and food safety expectations.

Before any equipment is started, associates initiate an ATP (adenosine triphosphate) swab program in order to monitor the efficiencies of the sanitation. Managers perform “deep-dive” CIP audits to verify and inspect equipment cleanliness, and there is a daily walk-through audit. Quality at the plant is high. According to the January 2012 Interstate Milk Shippers list, the bulk tank unit at Luana received an enforcement rating of 96 and the receiving station a perfect 100.

These good manufacturing practices, plus experienced cheesemakers, produce award-winning cheeses. But Swiss Valley Farms can’t rest on its laurels because there simply is no time to rest.  In Luana, cheesemaking is a 24/7 proposition.  

At A Glance

Location: Luana, Iowa

Additions/renovations: Acquired in 1967 when Swiss Valley Farms merged with the Northeast Iowa Dairy Cooperative. 1971: renovated to produce Swiss in 100-pound blocks. 2001: installed state-of-the-art Swiss cheese making equipment. 2010: installation of four new silos.

Size of the plant: 88,000 square feet

Number of production employees in the plant: 90+ employees

Products made: 100-pound Swiss and Baby Swiss blocks Annual production: 27.5 million pounds Whey powder in 50-pound bags. Annual production: 16.2 million pounds Cream cheese and Neufchatel in 3-, 30- and 50-pound containers. Annual production: 5.7 million pounds Acid set cream cheese in 5-pound and barrel containers

Total processing capacity: 1.2 million pounds daily

Pasteurization type/units/capacity: Swiss: plate heat exchanger at 63,000pph. Cream cheese: plate heat exchanger at 33,000pph. Whey products: tube and shell at 30,000pph

Certifications: Kosher, Halal, USDA, HACCP and BRC

Number of shifts: Three

Storage silos: 17, with a storage capacity of 4 million pounds

Warehouse: 9,640 square feet; 29 rows; 1 shipping and receiving bay

Storage capacity: 320,000 gallons for raw milk; 9,000-square-foot cooler storage