Use Tillamook packaging for leftovers, a flour canister and a flower pot!

There’s a new trend on the streets: upcycling! What is upcycling, you ask? It’s the concept of taking something you are probably going to throw away or recycle and creating something new out of it. Now, we don’t recommend upcycling your yummy Tillamook products (since they’re perishable!), but there are some fun ways to upcycle your Tillamook packaging and containers! I’ve compiled a couple crafty ideas for you here:

• Turn a Tillamook Yogurt cup into a flower pot. I hear painting the container fun colors helps turn a black thumb into a green one, but I can’t promise anything. Don’t forget to cut a few holes in the bottom to let the water drip out!

• Upcycle your Tillamook Ice Cream tub into a container for flour or sugar to keep your baking storage fun and neat.

• Use a Tillamook Sour Cream container to pack your leftovers – great for bringing lunch to work!

• Take a Tillamook Baby Loaf label, glue it to a piece of cardboard and cut it into pieces to make a cheesy puzzle.

• Or, cut up Baby Loaf label pieces and hodgepodge them to a jar to make stained glass! Adds a nice orange glow if you put a candle inside.

• Pack up Legos or game pieces in a Sour Cream container – you can paint the outside to help identify the contents!

• Take Tillamook to the office! Turn a yogurt cup into a taste-inspiring pen holder.

Do you have any fun craft ideas using Tillamook packaging?

- Katie of the Tillamook Team

By Katie

We know you’re familiar with Loafy and that cheery orange medium cheddar cheese packaging, but Loafy wasn’t always so dressed up. Tillamook Cheese loafs have come a long way from their paraffin dip shells and wooden crates to the airtight “shrink bags” they come in now. Here’s a look at our Tillamook packaging roots from the archives…

Here is a 2# baby loaf and other cheese sizes from our early days ready to ship in a wooden crate.

Check out these fancy boxes! There were a variety of cartons the paraffin dipped Baby Loaf was sold in.

In 1966, Baby Loaf gets its first Morning Star Ship seal.

In the mid 1980’s the shrink bag replaced the paraffin wax dip on the Baby Loaf and other products.

Here’s Baby Loaf with other 1 lb packages in the 1990’s.

In 2003 all types of Tillamook Cheese packaging got a new look reminiscent of the old style “Tillamook on the rind.”

Happy 100th Anniversary! Tillamook Cheese turned 100 in 2009 with some celebratory packaging.

In 2010 Baby Loaf began wearing its “Word’s Best Medium Cheddar” title proudly.

Now who knows what’s next for our tasty Baby Loaf!

By Scott

In the early 1930s, we began researching the possibility of smaller sized cuts of our cheese, including a method of canning cheese! We learned that the “severest competitor” to our larger rounds of cheddar was packaged cheese in consumer-friendly weights. At this time in our history, most of the cheese we made came in wheels or larger blocks that were kept, normally, in a cheese case in grocery stores. Consumers asked for an amount, and the proprietor would slice it from the larger block and wrap it in brown paper.

By 1947, we began marketing our first rindless cheese. Tillamook rindless cheese was made by aging a 20-pound block of cheddar without its cheesecloth wrapping. Once the block was ready, smaller 1- and ½-pound weights were cut from the large block. To package the cheese, an inner wrap was applied, followed by a cellophane overwrap. When the main Tillamook plant was constructed in 1949, it included a packaging department for rindless-cheese cutting and wrapping.

Today, the process is much simpler. Smaller weights are cut from a 40-pound block and, instead of an inner and outer wrap, there is only one, colorful wrapper hiding the cheesy goodness inside.

By Chandra

Tillamook Cheese packaging department, 1975

This is one of my favorite photos in our company archives. It shows some of the ladies from our packaging department in 1975. It’s their hair. The tall beehive hairdos perfectly covered in a giant hairnet with the little ruffle at the edge. It makes me smile every time I run across this photo. I hope you enjoy it, too. 

Today, Good Manufacturing Practices requires all employees in the cheesemaking or packaging areas to wear hairnets and completely cover their hair to protect product integrity. The hairnets aren’t this large anymore. Then again, neither are the hairstyles!

By Chandra