MEMBER PROFILE

After More Than a Century, Agri-Mark Continues to Put Members’ Milk Into Superior Products

BY COURTNEY KLESS

The 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 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

Sheridan. “Cabot was one of the first to really have their farmers promote the brand, and our farmers are still a key part of our brand culture and identity today. Our farmers work hard to supply the milk that goes into their award-winning products, and they have a lot of pride in that process and passion.”

And that pride is well earned. AgriMark had a strong showing at the World Championship Cheese Contest earlier this year with Cabot Creamery earning “Best of Class” honors for its mild cheddar, pepper jack, Pepper Jack Cracker Cuts and Chocolate Mousse Triple Cream Yogurt. In total, the cooperative won 16 awards.

“We strive for high-quality cheese, cultured products and butter products,” said Sheridan. “We have won many awards because our cheese is so good due to the efforts our farmers put into making that cheese, and what our team members at all our facilities put into just making a high-quality product. A product that consumers love and that we’re really proud to produce.”

The cooperative also takes considerable pride in its B Corp. Certification – in fact, it became the first dairy cooperative to earn the certification in 2012 (Editor’s note: A B Corp. Certification looks at a company’s impact in five

areas: governance, workers, community, environment and customers). Agri-Mark and its farms are committed to sustainability and the community, taking steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its trucks, using water that has been upcycled from milk at its Cabot plant and launching the Farmer Pen Pal Program to introduce children to life on a farm. The cooperative was recognized this spring with the Casella Sustainability Leadership Award and last year with an Efficiency Vermont Leadership Award, an EPA Environmental Merit Award and a U.S. Dairy Sustainability Award for Outstanding Dairy Farm Sustainability. “This year, we are going to be celebrating 10 years of B Corp Certification,” said Sheridan. “We saw and recognized that, as a business today, we need to make sure that we are paying close attention to environmental and social impacts for our customers, employees and farm families. That is one of those tenants that we’re very proud of and I think is important to us as a business.”

Another important piece of AgriMark’s success is the Young Cooperators. The program is intended for Agri-Mark’s younger members, ages 18 to 40 and holds a conference each summer, elects its own leaders and attends board of directors’ meetings to learn how the cooperative operates. Young Cooperators also has the chance to lobby on the Hill in Washington, D.C.

“The Young Cooperator Program is a great program,” said Sheridan. “I think of it as way to identify future leaders for the industry, for our cooperative and for our brand. The YC Program helps us cultivate members who are curious about their cooperative business and eager to understand how that business works. A number of our current board members are YC program alumni.”

As for the future, Agri-Mark hopes to continue building on a century of success.

“We have a tremendous brand and brand following, and I think our opportunities are to build on that brand, to build on that Cabot goodness and to continue to produce high-quality products that really hit the mark and serve the needs of our consumers and our customers,” said Sheridan. “That’s the direction that we’re headed in.”

Courtney Kless is a staff writer for Northeast Dairy Media.