Dairy Sheep Symposium - the Department of Animal Sciences ...

THE WISCONSIN SHEEP DAIRY COOPERATIVE – PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
Daniel P. Guertin
Wisconsin Sheep Dairy Cooperative
Strum, Wisconsin
The sheep dairy industry in the upper Midwest began in the mid 1980s with a small group of
Minnesota and Wisconsin sheep producers who began supplying sheep milk to a small cheese
plant (LaPaysanne) in east central Minnesota that specialized in sheep milk cheeses. By the
early 1990s, a second cheese plant (Bass Lake Cheese Factory) in northwestern Wisconsin had
also began producing specialty cheeses from sheep milk. During these early days, sheep milk
was sold as a food product and did not fall under the MN and WI requirements for milk. By the
mid 1990s, sheep milk was reclassified as milk and became subject to the stricter state dairy
regulations. Through the mid-1990s, all milk sales were direct sales from the farmers to the
cheese plants. Each cheese plant was responsible for inspecting, licensing, and paying the
individual farmers who they bought milk from. This led to a very management intensive
situation for the cheese plants that required licensing and re-licensing of farms each time the
individual farms shipped milk to a different cheese plant. This situation was complicated by the
extremely volatile market for domestically produced sheep milk cheeses which led to alternating
periods of high demand for sheep milk followed by periods of no demand for sheep milk. The
volatility of the sheep cheese market and milk supply led to the demise of La Paysanne in 1995.
In 1996, a third cheese plant (Montchevre), located in southwestern WI, expressed an interest
in sheep milk. They indicated, however, that they were only interested in working with a single
supply source for sheep milk that would handle all of the licensing, annual inspections, monthly
milk sampling, inventory management and payment to individual farmers. This request led to a
meeting in the spring of 1996 of existing and potential sheep dairy producers in the Midwest and
the subsequent formation of a steering committee to determine the feasibility of establishing a
sheep dairy cooperative. By September of 1997, the WSDC had been formed and registered as a
cooperative in the state of WI.
During the 1996 and 1997 milking seasons, the WSDC functioned as a Producer Agent for
Montchevre. This meant that the co-op functioned under the dairy plant license of the cheese
processor and performed all of the required inspections, testing and payments to individual
farmers. In the spring of 1998, the WSDC became licensed as a Dairy Plant in the State of
Wisconsin. This provided autonomy for the cooperative and allowed the co-op to begin marketing
milk to additional customers.
The original goals of WSDC were to: 1) market sheep milk produced by its members, 2)
establish a stable market for sheep milk, 3) establish a stable supply of sheep milk and 4) provide
the highest quality sheep milk available. In 1998, the WSDC received a grant from the State of
Wisconsin’s Agricultural Development and Diversification Program to develop marketing strategies
for the co-op. As part of this effort, and with the help of the University of Wisconsin Center
for Cooperatives, the WSDC established a Three-Year Strategic Plan that incorporated the
original goals of the cooperative.