Honoring the tradition of cheese making

Rufus “Junior” Musser IV/Owner – Milton Creamery: “It’s really neat how you just take a simple vat full of milk and six hours later you’ve got 900-thousand pounds of cheese.  There’s a lot involved in cheesemaking.  There’s art.  There’s science.  There’s passion involved.”

Rufus Musser IV, or “Junior” as he’s known in the rolling hills of southern Iowa’s Van Buren County, is an integral part of a family operation helping to boost the local economy.

Rufus “Junior” Musser IV/Owner – Milton Creamery: “You got all your different products here: Prairie Breeze, Garden Vegetable Cheddar, Tomato Garlic, Black Pepper, Caramelized Onion, Four Alarm, Old-Style Cheddar…  We are in all 50 states.”

  Satisfying demand for the award-winning, globe-trotting cheddar cheese varieties crafted by Milton Creamery creates jobs and allows for profit-sharing with fellow Mennonite and Amish source dairies. 

Rufus “Junior” Musser IV/Owner – Milton Creamery: “Cheese gets made in the other building…comes out here for aging.  So what aging does – it allows the flavors to develop.  This particular cheese has been here a little over a year.”

  It took a little time for Milton Creamery’s gastronomic accomplishments to ripen as well. Junior’s parents relocated their Mennonite family from Pennsylvania to Iowa in the early 1990s, away from selling homegrown produce and into dairy farming, which brought its own challenges.

Rufus “Junior” Musser IV/Owner – Milton Creamery: “We don’t have a lot of population.  So, to get much milk out there…going to have to do a lot of driving – a lot of delivery time.  Dad kept looking at the price of milk in the store, and the price he was getting on the farm, and he said: somewhere, somebody is making money in between here.”

The eureka moment came around 2000, when the elder Mussers attended a value-added dairy conference in Wisconsin and came away convinced that specialty cheesemaking, not milking cows, was their best path forward. 

Milton Creamery Employee: “That is straight off the farm, right there!”

Rufus “Junior” Musser IV/Owner – Milton Creamery: “Dad said: Here’s our niche.  This is where we need to be.  You bring milk in, being as milk is 87 percent water, you take the water off - condense it to cheese - now we can afford to ship it across the country.” 

 After breaking in and lighting up farmers markets for several years with their celebrated cheese curds, Milton Creamery unveiled Prairie Breeze to much acclaim.

Rufus “Junior” Musser IV/Owner – Milton Creamery: “The American Cheese Society would describe it as a sweeter cheddar, or a new age cheddar.  We decided that’s going to be the Cadillac.  That’s what’s going to drive the business forward, and it truly has.”

Their success allowed for expansion, which helps ensure a steady stream of customers with discerning tastes.  Just this summer, Milton Creamery’s Old Style Cheddar won gold at the International Cheese and Dairy Awards in the United Kingdom.

Megan Jennings/Villages of Van Buren County: “Well known in Van Buren County, and around the world!”

County tourism officials celebrate the Mussers and a rising tide of similar endeavors which help bring things like tax relief and school funding to local communities.

Megan Jennings/Villages of Van Buren County: “We’re very fortunate we do have the Amish and the Mennonites, and how they do work with us too.  They know that they have wealth coming in, but they also want to share it.  They support economic development.  We have bakeries, wood carving, cabinetmaking…  It offers unique tourism for people who want to experience their life, or just buy that unique craft, or food, that they make.”

The Amish reputation for exceptional craftsmanship and work ethic is well known. Though larger groups are found mostly east of Iowa, the Hawkeye state’s Amish population ranked ninth in the U.S. in 2023, at just under 10,000, according to statistics compiled by Pennsylvania’s Elizabethtown College.

Dr. Gail Carpenter/Assistant Professor & State Dairy Extension Specialist – Iowa State University: “Iowa actually has quite a large Amish-Mennonite population: a plain population.  They’re actually quite a large contributor to our agricultural sectors.  In dairy in particular, Amish milk makes up about 25 percent of the milk that’s produced here in Iowa, so they’re definitely big players.”

Iowa State University Assistant Professor and Dairy Extension Specialist Dr. Gail Carpenter says larger mainstream dairy producers, consolidated mainly into northern pockets of the state, harness various technologies to maintain high animal welfare standards and milking efficiency for their huge herds. 

She says while the Amish shun such advancements, Mennonite beliefs are less strict in practical application – though they adhere to stringent quality standards.  Complimentary partnerships have emerged, like Milton Creamery and the 5 dairy farms they buy milk from within 25 miles of their plant – the largest herd being 80 head.  Together, they leverage value-added niche opportunities inside a smaller footprint.

Dr. Gail Carpenter/Assistant Professor & State Dairy Extension Specialist – Iowa State University: “They share a lot of the same values that their producers would.  So, I think that creates a lot of trust there.  It’s also a very competitive market trying to look for places to sell milk.  It can be hard for small producers to find a co-op that wants to buy their milk from them because they just don’t have the same volume as a farm that milks a lot more cows would have.  So having that stability and that surety and that lack of risk with selling to Milton Creamery also fits in with their culture and their values as well.”

Carpenter adds each dairy cow in Iowa contributes roughly 24-thousand dollars to their local economies - and in a world of fewer producers, frayed connections between customers and food sources, a spirit of nostalgia has emerged – driving demand for products like specialty cheese.

The Musser family’s vision has led to benefits for their business and the region.  For creamery workers, hard work also pays off - in more ways than one.

Rufus “Junior” Musser IV/Owner – Milton Creamery: “Forking the cheese curds, stirring the salt in…very intense…  Also, when you put the 40-pound blocks into the hoops to put in the presses – between the weight of the hoops, plus the cheese in it – you’re looking at lifting 60, 65 pounds.  I like to tell new employees, when they start here in the production facility, you can cancel your gym membership.”

For Market to Market, I’m Josh Buettner.

contact: josh@iowapbs.org