Industrial Vacuums Solve Whey Powder Dust Issues

The mantra of Ellsworth Co-op Creamery (Ellsworth, WI) leaves no question as to what this 99-year old company specializes in, nor does their nickname, “Cheese Curd Capital of Wisconsin.” But it’s not just a “cheesy” nickname that has kept this company going strong year after year. The company takes cheese curds very seriously, and in an operation that processes close to 1.3 million pounds of milk a day, it’s no surprise that efficiency is a critical component of the operation.

Cheese curds are essentially cheddar cheese in its purest form. Described as “squeaky” fresh, the production process is actually anything but squeaky clean, especially when it comes to processing the whey powder. As a by-product of cheese, whey is the liquid component that separates from milk after the curdling process. Ellsworth dries the whey into a powder form and sells it to a variety of markets for use in everything from animal feed to flavoring in popular snack foods.