From running the pasteurizer to pumping fresh milk to adding the all-important starter culture to putting the cheese in forms and pressing it down, Master Cheesemaker Tony Hook is hands-on when crafting 70 flavors of aged cheddars, blues and mixed milk cheeses that bear the name of Hook’s Cheese.

While family-run Hook’s Cheese only has seven full-time employees, this 8,500-square-foot cheesemaking plant — originally built as a livery stable to the Washington Hotel in 1875 and is on the National Register of Historic Places — has transcended history as one of the first cheese companies in Wisconsin to perfect the art and science of mixed milk cheeses.

Since expanding operations and moving from New Gloucester, Maine, 120 miles Northeast to Bangor, home of world-famous horror author Stephen King, Pineland Farms Dairy Co.’s growth and reputation has been anything but scary.

The healthy hydrating refreshment of cool, nutritious, and delicious milk will never go out of style. Founded in 2004, Pineland Farms uses 100% fresh Maine milk from nearby farms — around 20 within a 50-mile radius of Bangor — to handcraft 3,200 to 6,400 pounds of specialty cheeses a day.

Making cheese without any automation is a back-breaking, tiring job with a lot of stooping, stirring, manual washing of hoops and so on. When it comes to automation, “zero is not a hero,” for Master Cheesemaker Chris Renard and the team who handle production and packaging for Renard’s Cheese factory in Algoma, Wis.

Kerrygold, an international brand of Ornua, entered the on-the-go snacking category with new Cheese Snacks, available in Dubliner and Aged Cheddar flavors.

When something is “grand,” it denotes something “magnificent, the largest/most important item of its kind.”

Wyke Farms has expanded U.S. availability of Ivy’s Reserve Vintage Cheddar, which it says is the “world’s first carbon-neutral Aged English Cheddar.”

Tillamook County Creamery Association (TCCA), Tillamook, Ore., announced the release of Tillamook Maker's Reserve 2012 extra sharp white cheddar, the newest 10-year-old vintage in its Maker's Reserve program.

Chatham, N.J.-based Trugman-Nash LLC says it is bringing even more “bite” to its popular line of cheddars with the introduction of Grand Reserve Old Croc Australian vintage cheddar in a new, convenient 7-ounce retail package.