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Cabot's habits: beloved Vermont cheddar comes from a plant with historic roots and an eye on the future.

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"Consistency is good in the dairy industry," says Doug DiMento, communications director for AgriMark, the Massachusetts-based cooperative that owns Vermont's Cabot Creamery.

It's consistency of product--in particular, an extensive line of aged cheddar cheeses, as well as assorted cultured products--that has made the Cabot brand a household name in New England for the past 90 years and, more recently, across the country.

Cabot makes cheese in two plants in the Green Mountain State, but it's the flagship plant in its namesake town that gets most of the attention. A visitor center, offering tourists a glimpse inside the plant and an extensive selection of edible wares, has made Cabot a popular vacation stop.

Tourists get to see a short video about Cabot's history and witness some of the cheesemaking process through glass windows during a brief guided tour. What they see is a combination of time-honored processes, many of which have changed little over the past century, and high-tech handling methods that make it possible for a growing consumer base to enjoy Cabot's old-world flavor in ever-increasing numbers.

Building blocks

Vermont cheddar begins life in Cabot's lower plant, where cheese-making takes place (versus aging, cutting and wrapping in the upper plant). Milk arrives 365 days a year from the co-op's member owners, from 800,000 to 1 million pounds of milk daily.

"The fluctuation is due to the exact product we make," explains Marcel Gravel, plant manager. "We don't always make cottage cheese and dips."

More than two dozen trucks are received daily, offloading milk (after passing an extensive battery of quality testing) into raw silos that can hold more than 1 million pounds. Out of the same bay, the plant sends out six loads of whey daily to Cabot's plant in Middlebury, Vt., for processing, as well as cream to be made into butter at the AgriMark facility in Springfield, Mass.

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"The biggest thing we produce here is our low-fat cheese," Gravel says, noting that all the brand's reduced-fat varieties are made here. "We make low fat five days a week and [regular] cheddar two days."

Milk is separated and clarified, the cream and excess solids shipped to...

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