The numbers have been tallied, the food has been weighed, and Tillamook is extremely proud to have been a part of making this year’s KGW Great Food Drive the most successful ever!

Thanks to generous individuals and companies, this year’s Great Food Drive raised more than 1.2 million pounds of food for the Oregon Food Bank, more than DOUBLE this year’s campaign goal of 600,000 pounds, and far surpassing last year’s campaign results as well. Here at Tillamook, we’re thrilled to have contributed $30,000 from the sales of our cheese in Oregon and southwest Washington during the month of March. Additionally, our Tillamook employees alone donated more than 13,000 pounds of food to the Great Food Drive during March as well.

Overall, this year’s campaign raised enough food to provide more than 900,000 meals to those in need in our communities. Knowing that we were part of making a positive impact on that many lives here in our home state of Oregon means so much to us.

We had a lot of fun seeing our fans at food collection events throughout the state and welcoming our good friend and KGW NewsChannel 8 morning show personality Drew Carney to the Tillamook Cheese Factory to help promote the cause!

To all of the Tillamook fans that bought extra cheese in March to support this very worthy cause, thank you!

The problem of hunger is a year-round issue for adults and children across our state. To find out how to support the Oregon Food Bank throughout the year, visit www.OregonFoodBank.org.

By Tori

To help curd-loving fans across the country, and to support our partners at the Oregon Food Bank, we released the curds to our Online Shop for one day only on our 104th birthday! Squeaky Cheese Curds are highly perishable and start to lose their “squeak” after just a few days, so we’ve never been able to facilitate shipping them on a daily basis before. In order to ship these squeak-packed bags of curds, the Tillamook Marketing team took several days away from our regular jobs to personally hand-pack and ship orders from the Tillamook Cheese Factory! Here are some photos from our adventures in shipping Squeaky Cheese Curds.

Here come the curds! The curds we sent were taken fresh out of the vat at 6am (boy, was it early!) so we had time to pack all the boxes.

Good morning! We shipped brand-squeaking fresh curds with overnight shipping, to ensure optimal squeak when they arrived at their final destination.

Here are some empty boxes, waiting for their curds! Each box of curds was handpacked with two bags of curds, an ice pack, a packing slip, and lots of love.

Here’s our UPS truck, squeak-packed with our first day’s shipment of cheese curd orders.

We had a fun time packing all 700+ orders of cheese curds! Thanks again for supporting Tillamook and celebrating our 104th birthday. We hope you can visit us soon at the Tillamook Cheese Factory, where you can get cheese curds all year round.

Yours cheesefully,
The Squeaky Cheese Team

By Katie

Many of us take for granted the fact that we always have a hot meal waiting for us at the end of the day, or a Baby Loaf of delicious Tillamook Cheese sitting in our fridge. But the fact is, hunger has reached an all-time high in the U.S., and more families are seeking emergency food services than ever before. Here in our home state, we know that 1 in 5 Oregonians struggle with hunger, and one-third of those that receive food boxes from local food banks are children. These numbers are pretty astonishing, especially when you consider that many of these people who are struggling to put food on their table each day might be your neighbors, co-workers, and friends.

As a food producer and community leader, we at Tillamook feel it is our responsibility to help make a difference in the lives of people who are fighting hunger every day. That’s why we are proud for the seventh year in a row to support the KGW Great Food Drive, an incredibly valuable public service campaign that helps bring the community together to fight this serious issue of hunger.

During the month of March, we will be donating a portion of proceeds from any size or variety of Tillamook Cheese sold at stores throughout Oregon and SW Washington to the Great Food Drive, which supports the Oregon Food Bank.

Also – each week in March, we will be featuring a different special at our Tillamook Cheese Factory Visitor Center in support of the Great Food Drive. So, if you stop by to visit us on the coast, bring in 2 non-perishable food items or $2.00 to donate, and enjoy these special offers:

March 5 – 11: 10% off any purchase of Tillamook Cheese (no additional discounts apply)

March 12 – 18: Purchase the Great Food Drive Lunch Special at the Creamery Café of a Tillamooker Grilled Cheese sandwich and a cup of soup, and receive another Great Food Drive Lunch Special FREE (no substitutions)

March 19 – 25: Purchase any Tillamook Ice Cream item at the dipping counter, and receive a second item FREE (free item of equal or lesser value)

March 26 – 31: Purchase one pound of any variety(s) of fudge, and receive ½ pound FREE

Last year the Great Food Drive campaign raised more than 755,000 pounds of food for the Oregon Food Bank, which was enough to provide nearly 600,000 meals to those in need in our communities. Working together as a community, we hope to raise even more food and funds this year, so that we can continue to combat this serious issue. We hope you’ll join us!

By Tori

Sadly, hunger has reached an all-time high and more families are seeking emergency food services than ever before. Here in our home state, we know that 1 in 5 Oregonians struggle with hunger, and one-third of those that receive food boxes from local food banks are children. These numbers are pretty astounding, especially when you realize that many of these people might be your neighbors, co-workers and friends who are struggling to put food on their tables.

As a food producer and community leader, we at Tillamook feel it is our responsibility to help make a difference in the lives of people who are fighting hunger every day. That’s why we are proud to support the KGW Great Food Drive for the sixth year in a row.

During the month of March, we will be donating a portion of proceeds from any size or variety of Tillamook Cheese sold at stores throughout Oregon and SW Washington to the Great Food Drive, which supports the Oregon Food Bank.

Also – each week in March, we will be featuring a different special at our Tillamook Cheese Factory Visitor Center in support of the Great Food Drive. So, if you stop by to visit us on the coast, bring in 2 food items or $2.00 to donate, and enjoy these special offers:

March 4-10:        Receive $1.00 off your order at the Ice Cream Counter

March 11-17:      Receive a FREE Coffee, Pop or Milk with any breakfast or lunch entrée purchase at the Creamery Café (excludes juices)

March 18-24:      Receive 10% off all Tillamook branded apparel and souvenirs

March 25-31:      Buy one pound of fudge, get a half pound free

Working together as a community, hopefully we can begin to combat this serious issue. We hope you’ll join us!

By Tori

Harvest photo courtesy of OFB Facebook, Portland Mayor Sam Adams

Tillamook was honored to be a part of the Oregon Food Bank’s Harvest Dinner this past weekend. OFB completely transformed their loading dock into a delicious opportunity to celebrate the bounty of the Pacific Northwest and raise money to end hunger in Oregon and SW Washington.

This fundraising is more important than ever as OFB, for the first time ever, distributed more than 1 million emergency food boxes this year to date (a 12% increase over the previous year). While this statistic makes us grateful for the unending support OFB provides our community, it also deserves pause to consider how the need for emergency food is growing. To drive home this point, Portland Mayor Sam Adams spoke and shared this video about food security from Sesame Street.

As food security is an extremely important issue to us here at Tillamook, we feel privileged to be able to sponsor this event and continue to be a partner to the Oregon Food Bank.

One of my favorite moments from the event was getting to meet two of OFB’s resident chickens, Lulu and D. Lee, who supply fresh eggs and are a part of the community garden program. For more information about the program or how to get involved, please visit OFB online.

Thank you Oregon Food Bank for a wonderful evening, an amazing event, and all the crucial work your organization does day in and day out!

By Scott

Did you know that 1 in 5 Oregonians struggles with hunger? When you think about how many people are in your social network, this number is pretty astounding; it’s our neighbors, friends, and children you see every day that could be struggling to put food on their tables. 

The need for emergency food has reached a record high, and that’s why Tillamook Cheese is sponsoring the KGW Great Food Drive. During the month of March, buy any Tillamook Cheese at local stores in Oregon and SW Washington and we will donate a portion of the proceeds to the Great Food Drive, which supports the Oregon Food Bank.

Please join us in supporting a healthy community. Together we can fight hunger!

By Tillamook