Gourmet Gift Baskets Supplier Spotlight – Cabot Creamery

Our Midwestern customers might argue that Wisconsin makes the best cheddar cheese, but as proud New Englanders, we know the best cheddar cheese comes from Vermont! We are proud to source the cheese products in many of our gourmet gift baskets from the Cabot Creamery Cooperative, founded by local dairy farmers in Cabot, Vermont, back in 1919.


Founded in 1919

The original Cabot plant cost 94 local farmers $3,700 to create. Each farmer bought into the cooperative based on the number of cattle each owned on their dairy farms ($5 per cow, plus a cord of wood to fuel the boiler). The cooperative made butter with the excess milk produced and began shipping its products south. The goal was to help protect dairy farmers as the national economy shifted away from agriculture, and the Vermont economy was still based mainly on dairy farming. By turning their excess milk into butter, individual dairy farmers earned a steady source of additional income and weren’t as reliant on the price of milk to keep their farms alive.

Products We Still Enjoy Today

In 1930 the cooperative started making the cheese products that GourmetGiftBaskets.com now carries. In fact, at that time, cows outnumbered people in the local areas, 421,000 to 359,000. That’s a lot of milk to process! Sixty-five percent of the total Vermont farm income in 1930 came from the sale of dairy products, so expanding from milk and butter into cheese opened up a whole new profitable market for Vermont dairy farmers.

Cabot Creamery Grows Year After Year

By 1960, the cooperative had 600 member farmers! Today they are a cooperative of 1,200 dairy farm families located throughout New York and New England.

Award-Winning Cheese

In 1989 the Cabot Creamery Cooperative took first place in the cheddar category at the U.S. Championship Cheese Contest held in Green Bay, Wisconsin (told you Vermont has the best cheddar cheese)! Wine Spectator magazine listed Cabot cloth-bound cheddar as one of the “100 great cheeses of the world in 2008, and the Cabot Monterey Jack received an award from the American Cheese Society in the same year.

Featured in Gift Baskets

GourmetGiftBaskets.com carries fresh Cabot cheese products in many of our gift baskets. These all-occasion gift baskets are popular thank you, birthday, congratulations, sympathy, get well, and corporate gifts. Currently, we feature fresh Cabot Cheddar cheese in these gift baskets:

Farmers Market Gift Box  Orchard's Abundance - Fruit Gift Basket  Epic Charcuterie Gift Basket

Expanding Product Line

In addition to multiple cheddar cheese flavors and butter, Cabot also produces a wide range of products. Products such as Greek-style yogurts, dips, cream cheese, cottage cheese, are just a few! They even turn the leftover whey (separated during the cheese-making process) into powdered whey protein. Powdered protein can be added to your post-workout recovery drink. Or, mix into baked goods to make them more nutritious!

 

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