April 10, 2015
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Award-winning Guggisberg Cheese works on Swiss production expansion

Photo courtesy of Randy McKee of GPI AWARD-WINNING PRODUCTS — Guggisberg Cheese, located in the heart of Ohio’s Amish country, has won numerous awards for its Swiss cheese over the last few years, including the ribbons held here by Ursula Guggisberg-Bennett, marketing coordinator, Guggisberg Cheese, and Richard Guggisberg, president, Guggisberg Cheese.

Photo courtesy of United States Championship Cheese Contest by Gary Porter PRESENTING THE U.S. CHAMPION — Judges at the U.S. Championship Cheese Contest last month display the overall champion, a 200-pound wheel of Swiss made at Guggisberg Cheese’s Sugarcreek, Ohio, plant.

By Kate Sander

MILLERSBURG, Ohio — For the last few years, Guggisberg Cheese Inc. has been the top winner in the U.S. Championship Cheese Contest’s Swiss class. This year, though, the company outdid itself with the biggest award of all — overall U.S. champion at last month’s contest.

The 200-pound Swiss wheel took top honors out of 1,892 contest entries. Out of a possible 100 points, the Swiss wheel scored 98.496 in the final round of judging, during which judges re-evaluated the top 16 cheeses at an evening charity gala to determine the overall champion.

The winning cheese, made at Guggisberg Cheese’s Sugarcreek, Ohio, plant, was a team effort, says Richard Guggisberg, company president. Guggisberg credits the company’s success to upholding the long-standing traditions of superior quality, authenticity, dedicated employees and a genuine concern for customers’ satisfaction.

This year’s award-winning cheese is a little different from the other cheeses the company makes, but the same level of care goes into all of them, Guggisberg says. Most of the cheeses the company makes are in 200-pound blocks, but this year’s winning Swiss was made in a wheel. The cheese, made from pasteurized milk (as are all of Guggisberg Cheese’s products), was also aged for 90 days as opposed to the usual 60 days.

Wheels cure differently than cheese in blocks, and Guggisberg attributes the different curing and rind to the winning difference.

That said, most of the industry makes Swiss in blocks for practical reasons. It’s much easier to cut cheese for sandwiches from a block or a deli horn, he notes. Guggisberg Cheese and its customers are no exception to that.

“We aren’t reinventing the wheel,” he quips.

Still, there is demand for wheels from some specialty retailers, and Guggisberg Cheese installed equipment a few years ago at the Sugarcreek plant that allows the company to make 14 pieces of 200-pound Swiss from a vat, with the 14th being a wheel.

“It’s a way to get back to our roots,” says Guggisberg, whose father, Alfred, a Swiss immigrant, started the family cheese business. The trade was passed from father to son, and as a child Guggisberg remembers scraping Swiss wheels during curing before moving into the business full-time as an adult.

Ray Kohl, who handles marketing for Guggisberg Cheese, says that while there won’t be large quantities of the winning Swiss available, the company will do its best to make some available.

He is conscious, though, of the potentially high demand for the cheese and trying to satisfy everyone fairly. There already have been numerous calls regarding the cheese from customers who want to feature it at special events and grand openings, he says.

Guggisberg Cheese staff will be in Madison later this month at the Wisconsin Cheese Industry Conference to accept the championship award. The company also will be highlighting the win throughout the year on its marketing materials. Already, the award is featured on the front page of the company’s website.

Being U.S. Champion may be the company’s biggest award, but Guggisberg Cheese has earned a number of honors over the last few years, and historically the company has offered signage, promotional materials and store sampling for retailers to advertise its wins.

In addition to being the Swiss class winner at the U.S. Championship Contest three contests in a row, the company this past summer was awarded both the Grand Champion Rosette and the Reserve Champion Rosette at the July 8 Ohio State Fair Cheese Contest for its Swiss and Butter Cheese on its way to accruing the most points in three contests and being named the Ohio Swiss Cheese Association’s Grand Champion for the year. Guggisberg Cheese also placed second and third in the Swiss class at last year’s World Dairy Expo Championship Dairy Product Contest.

The awards in recent years attest to the company’s commitment to quality, a commitment on which the company continues to build, according to Guggisberg. Based in the heart of Amish country, Guggisberg Cheese operates three plants — the Sugarcreek plant, its headquarters plant in Millersburg, Ohio, and Deutsch Käse Haus of Middlebury, Indiana, which the company purchased in 2009. Deutsch Käse Haus manufactures Colby, Marble, Yogurt and other stirred-curd cheeses.

All of the plants are Safe Quality Foods Level 2 certified, and the company continually invests in food safety, Guggisberg says. Guggisberg Cheese also is in the process of upgrading its Sugarcreek plant. About two years ago, the company added 50,000 square feet that includes new aging rooms, coolers and packaging areas. Last year, another 10,000 square feet with a new brining area and lab were added. This year, the company is renovating its production area and adding new equipment.

“The additions increase our capacity but foremost, they give us more control over our process,” Guggisberg says, adding that he expects the additional equipment to be fully online by this time next year. Companywide cheese production this year is expected to total about 31 million pounds, down from the previous year as the company finishes the expansion project.

Guggisberg Cheese sells about 45 percent of its product under the Guggisberg label, 30 percent under private label and about 25 percent for converting.

“With the plant expansion and new equipment, we’ll be in a position to take on new customers and expand our Guggisberg brand sales,” Kohl says.

“We are building for the future,” Guggisberg adds. “We are creating a world class facility as good as any place in the world.”

Guggisberg says the company is working on new products as well. Swiss isn’t the most popular cheese among consumers — in 2013, U.S. per capita Swiss consumption was only 1.05 pounds — but Guggisberg Cheese aims to give consumers options with “more customized flavors tailored to the American palate,” Guggisberg says.

“Our focus is on building the Swiss category and increasing consumption,” Guggisberg adds. To that end, the company in the last couple of years has added a complete line of packaged bulk Swiss and pre-cut pieces. The pre-cuts are available in exact-weight 12-ounce wedges for ease of use.

Kohl says the company’s best sales tool is getting customers to try its cheese. While the company doesn’t do a great number of personalized demos, it does provide sampling allowances and signage for retailers who want to sample its cheese for consumers.

The recent win just adds more buzz to the excitement about the company’s future, according to Kohl, who started working with Guggisberg in the early 1990s when the company was relatively small.

“There was no Harvard business school or Wall Street plan to get us where we are today,” Kohl says. “If you make good cheese, have strict food safety standards, sell at a competitive price and provide good customer service, you should be successful.”

CMN