Member Profile
After More Than a Century, Agri-Mark Continues to Put Members’ Milk Into Superior Products BY COURTNEY KLESS
T
he Agri-Mark Cooperative has been around for more than 100 years – but working toward shared goals has remained a central part of its culture. “Our employees take great pride in knowing they are putting together a product for the farmers and knowing it’s this partnership between the farmers providing the milk and the employees working hard to make a great product,” said Amber Sheridan, director of corporate communications for Agri-Mark. “I think that culture is really important.” The cooperative’s roots can be traced back to 1913, when the New 48 • Northeast Dairy Foods Association, Inc.
England Milk Producers Association was formed (it would eventually become Agri-Mark in 1980). Around the same time, in 1919, 94 farmers in Cabot, Vermont, officially created the Cabot Creamery Cooperative. The two merged in 1992. Eleven years later, the cooperative expanded again, acquiring McCadam Cheese, one of the oldest cheese businesses in the country. “I think it’s unique in that we have a couple different histories to think about,” said Sheridan. “Both of those organizations have separate timelines but have the shared mission of cooperatives and dairy farmers working together to serve the marketplace, to produce great
products and to supply high-quality fluid milk to the region.” Today, Agri-Mark produces a variety of products under the Cabot and McCadam labels – branded cheese, butter, yogurt, cottage cheese, sour cream, cream cheese, whipped cream and dips, as well as whey powders and milk powders. All in all, the cooperative markets the milk of 650 farms in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont. “Our Cabot brand has done an excellent job of marketing our farmers, their messages and their unique stories as a way to differentiate our brand,” said
