Monteverde Cheese Factory

This afternoon we decided to finally tour the Monteverde Cheese Company.  We had walked past it a couple of times and have gotten some ice cream there but today we decided to go behind the scenes.  The tour started with telling us about the history of Monteverde as well as the history behind this Cheese Factory which started in 1954.  They have approx. 230 farms that bring milk to the factory some with the big milk trucks while other with horses and oxen.

This picture shows to the right where the milk is stirred until the cheese curds form as well as to the left shows the cheese in the forms being pushed together.

This is a picture of the lab where a lot of important tests are carried out.  Every batch of milk that comes in is tested for hormones and antibiotics as well as to the bacterial levels in the milk.

Here you can see one of the big tubs that the milk has drained out of and they are putting the cheese curds into the forms.  All of the waste products from this process is sent directly to a hog farm where the pigs consume all of the waste products.  Once we saw the process we were able to sample 5 different cheeses as well as their caramel that they make here on site.

Here is a few pictures of the store that they have on site where people can come in and buy all of their products.  They have a countless number of different cheeses, sour cream, cottage cheese, cream cheese, as well as ice cream.

Here you can see a glimpse of their ice cream flavors as well as the hose for the milk.  You can bring in any container that you want and it can be filled with fresh milk.  Below you can see Paul who brought in his water bottle and got it filled up for 50 cents, what a deal.  You can also see Mave and I eating our ice cream.  She had coconut and coffee and I had mora (blackberry) and chocolate.  It was the perfect ending to a great tour.