Wanted

Unity Food Hub Offers Aging Space

This is from Justin Nadeau–

“We have made a few changes this year to our operations and I wanted to reach out. We have three (+/- 400 sq. ft.) cold storage units that are actively being marketed for rented space. I recently started working with a small creamery aging some natural rind gouda. I don’t know a lot about cheese aging but I have been able to bring one of our coolers to an aging environment and she is pleased with her cheese quality. She has asked for 48 deg and 85% humidity.

The units are professionally serviced, temperature monitored with alerts and alarms. The coolers are cleaned ceiling to floor bi-annually and the rolling shelving units are epoxy coated wire shelves from Regency. In the short term, renting for cheese is a trial because they are one small batch cheese maker and I would need to be able to fill the cooler or have someone interested in the whole cooler.

I would like to offer more of the space to other small batch cheese makers looking to rents a pallet or a few shelves. The space is flexible right now. I don’t know how different the environments are or the bacteria are between cheeses, maybe different makers wouldn’t want to mix their cheese in the same room.

I have learned that blue cheese and gouda don’t mix well in the aging environment. I wanted to reach out to see if there was interest from someone you know or work with in the cheese community. Maybe a startup cheese maker, or serious hobbyist, a cheese class that informs people where to start if they don’t have the space? I also don’t know if someone is already renting space like this.”

For more information about this opportunity contact:

Justin Nadeau, General Manager
Unity Food Hub
69 School St.
Unity, ME. 04988
justin@unityfoodhub.com

Pineland Farms Dairy Progress

Mark Whitney hosted a Guild meeting at the new plant in February

Progress continues apace as Pineland Farms Dairy Co. continues its transition from New Gloucester to the old Grants/Garelick plant in Bangor. President Mark Whitney hosted a Guild meeting at the plant in February which was still installing much of the infrastructure at that time. As of May 1st there are now rows and shelves full of aging cheddar blocks and other cheeses (as you can see in the linked article above) in the new warehouse space and the cut and wrap machines were being tested. By July he expects them to be making cheese in Bangor.