Oregon State University has debuted it’s new cheese, a specialty alpine cheese (like Swiss, Comte or Gruyere) dubbed by the students “Beaver Classic.” It’s a mild cheese, with nutty flavors like caramelized onions.
OSU started online sales this week, but home football game sales of the stuff have been under way since early September.
The college creamery is a hallmark of many land-grant universities in the U.S. It gives students hands-on experience, provides food safety and production training to state businesses, tests products and flavors, and provides the campus (students, staff and alumni) with a healthy supply of milk, cheese, butter and most importantly, ice cream.
After 30 years of closed doors, OSU’s cheese plant re-opened in 2009 with a new philosophy and a unique product.
In addition to educating students, the goal is grow the local dairy markets, not compete with them. In OSU’s case, that also means growing the local artisan cheese market, which now consists of about 20 vendors. In the cheese business, startup costs can be quite pricey, so OSU allows cheesemakers to come in and use the plant to produce their first cheeses for up to a year.
Source: NPR’s The Salt