Wisconsin may be America's dairyland, but Cache Valley is Utah's.
If you doubt that, you need to spend a few minutes with Dolores Gossner Wheeler, president and CEO of Gossner Foods in Logan.Wheeler was born in Wisconsin and now lives in Utah.
Her father, Edwin Gossner Sr., is a Utah dairy legend.
She knows her dairylands.
"There are two cheese companies in Cache County," says Wheeler. "Utah State University does an excellent job with the dairy industry, and Richmond is famous for Black and White Days."
Besides, she says, when you see a parade in Cache Valley, you know you're going to see a float with a dairy princess on it.
Every time.
You can't argue with that logic.
Just as you can't argue with the success -- and appeal -- of Wheeler's own cheese enterprise.
At a time when families are looking for fun, inexpensive ways to spend time together, many are turning away from high-priced "packaged entertainment" and creating their own fun. And many have found a trip to the "cheese factory" near Logan can make for a nice day.
At Gossner's, a small store sells two dozen cheeses and there are free samples available of everything from Asadero to Monterey Jack. By next month, the company hopes to have its observation deck finished, where families can take in a bit of history by looking at photographs and can watch the cheese move through the maze. There is also a picnic area, flags, murals and souvenirs (Green Bay may have the "Cheese Heads," but Cache Valley as Gossner ball caps).
Visitors come from everywhere, at times making a 40-minute detour from I-15, just to pick up a package of Muenster and watch the curds get weighed.
"Sometimes," says Wheeler, "people will leave here with the back of a pick-up truck full of cheese."
Return business is the lifeblood of the operation.
And the Gossner history is the heart.
In 1930, Edwin Gossner left Switzerland and headed for Wisconsin to be with his brother and become an apprentice cheese maker. Then in 1941, Gossner came through Utah on his way to Yellowstone Park and knew he had found his home.
When he arrived in Logan, no one in Utah had made Swiss cheese before. But by the end of the year, Cache Valley had become the home of the largest Swiss cheese factory in the world, rolling out 120 200-pound wheels a day.
In 1966, the family expanded its cheese line and took the name Gossner Foods.
Today, Gossner UHT milk (ultra high temperature milk) nourishes American soldiers and is sold as far afield as Puerto Rico and Panama, because it needs no refrigeration.
Dolores Wheeler took over the reins of the family business when her father died in 1987.
Today, she is always on site, greeting visitors and checking on the vats.
Most of the time, it's tough for her to make it from her office to the parking lot because the little cheese store is always pressure-packed with customers.
"It's a good place to try new products," she says.
The question she hears most?
Why does Swiss cheese have holes in it?
Her own favorite cheese?
"A nice, sharp cheddar."
A favorite memory?
Riding to the dairy in the back of a milk truck loaded with metal milk cans.
In the end, families enjoy the plant because it's not only a family business, it's family friendly.
The farmers who supply the milk are from family farms and the people on payroll have a downhome quality.
And in Utah -- where the amusement parks are growing more crowded and expensive and a movie with the kids can cost you a day's wages -- little day-trips like a ride to the Gossner cheese plant are becoming an economical way to create family memories and gain a touch of education in the process.