Being a brand ambassador on The Loaf Love Tour is kind of like a grilled cheese sandwich… it sounds amazing, but getting the cheese to melt perfectly without burning the bread is not an easy task. With a forever-changing call time, chaotic traffic, and unpredictable weather the team always has to be prepared for changes! Fun, hectic, animated, amusing, are just a few words that come to mind when describing what it’s like behind the scenes, but they still don’t suffice. Check out all these photos from behind the scenes.

We like to keep our YUM buses nice and shiny! Being cheesy at the car wash

Car wash is all done, so we decided to take a photo. Aren’t they shiny?!

Cubing these tasty loafs for our event days, we call this a Cubing Party!

We always have fun at work, but even when we’re off the clock we stick together and stay cheesy!

 Post by Elida

By Tillamook

Being a Tillamook Cheese Brand Ambassador on the Loaf Love Tour is one exciting job! We are a team of 6 unique individuals sharing our love for the Tillamook brand to the people. We are on the road traveling city to city for several months, creating lifelong cheesy memories, meeting and creating Tillafans. What’s there not to love about it?

The best part of our job is driving to and from events. It’s awesome to drive these fun little VW Yum buses. We love to see the smiles, laughs, thumbs up and waves! If you stop by for an event we’d love to take a picture of you next to one!

Cleaning the Yum buses and maintenance is crucial to keeping them in great condition. We take great pride in the Yum buses as they are unique and so nicely detailed. We clean them often and Ray does weekly maintenance to make sure they are in tip top shape! Look at him cheesn’!

I like to clean too! :)

A lot of prep work goes into each day of our events.  We cube our Medium Cheddar, Monterey Jack, and Pepper Jack cheeses so that we’re able to share our love of cheese in cute tiny cubes! It’s one of my favorite activities because we have so much fun listening to music and catching up while we’re cubing! We call this a cubing party!

Setting up at the stores can be a challenge. Taking all of the materials out of the YUM for the event and carefully putting the kiosk together takes time and care because we want to look our best for our Tillafans! It is a really great display when we have the Tillamook banner up, cheese trays out, and tooth picks in place! Our events are the best!

We are excited to share our love of cheese and hope to make it a memorable event! We do that by giving away Smile Sticks & Buttons. Taking pictures next to the YUM bus and enjoying cheese samples are all part of the experience! Mary is one of our Tillafan’s from California and has been following the Loaf Love Tour online. She took the time to see all of us Brand Ambassadors while in San Francisco. It’s always nice to see our Tillafans and share our Tillamook excitement! Hope to see you on the road!

Post by DeeDee

By Tillamook

I could not wait to get behind the wheel of that awesome looking bus! I instantly knew that while driving, I would be able to put a smile on people’s faces. But…what I didn’t know was how difficult it was going to be for me to drive!

Prior to the YUM, I was driving an automatic 1992 Ford Crown Victoria, and had never driven a manual car before. When I learned the YUMs were stick shifts I freaked out! I was both scared and excited to learn something new.

Brian, The Bus Man, was a great driving instructor! He was so knowledgeable and patient. He was still smiling after I stalled the bus five times in a row at the stop sign! Whoops! Thankfully as time passed, and with lots of practice, I was able to get the hang of it!

Now that I’m out on tour I feel a lot more comfortable behind the wheel. My favorite thing about driving is seeing people’s reactions on the road! I loaf it! But I’m still nervous for those hills in San Francisco! Good thing I’ve still got some time to practice! Catch me in the Loafster coastin’ through California!

- Madison Ornstil, West Tour

“I get to drive that cute little orange bus!” was the first thought I had in my head when I learned I would soon be driving the YUMs. But I can’t lie, this cheese lover was a bit nervous about getting behind the wheel! For some of my teammates, Elida and Katie, it was their first time learning to drive a stick shift, and certainly, none of us had ever driven a custom VW Bus before!

The Bus Man, Brian, took us to an empty parking lot to test our skills in our new mode of transportation. We took turns getting in, buckling up, and gave it our best shot! We instantly had a number of passerby’s walking over to check out the buses. There was an abundance of smiles and waves from other cars –  Ahhhh I could get use to this!

Driving the bus was a bit scary at first. They are extra sensitive to pressure on the clutch. During my first day of sampling, the Tillatruck ran out of gas and I almost had a mini panic attack thinking I’d done something terrible! (See the video!)

My two veteran teammates, April & Ashley, were very helpful! We’re all driving like pros now! Come catch us cruising through Texas this Spring!

- Inge Pe’a, East Tour

By Tillamook

Nice and shiny, freshly painted Tillamook orange!

The time has come for the 2013 Loaf Love Tour to begin and for the Tillatruck to make its debut in Texas! The Tillatruck (or as the license plate says Yum 6) is the newest member of the Tillamook fleet of shortened VW buses. Only Yum 6 is not a bus, it’s a 1959 single cab truck. Our VW experts out there may notice that there are some differences between the Tillatruck and a standard 1959 single cab. (Besides the obvious fact that we cut out four feet of the center of the truck!) We have made some updates for safety and aesthetics in order to match the look of the other Yums. The turn signals in the front and rear have been updated to the later larger style. The rear fold down gates were custom built in the very early “Barndoor” style in order to allow a smooth surface for the Tillatruck’s stylish graphics. Yum 6 will be about 1½” longer than its predecessors. Cameron Johnson of VolksFab in Port Orchard, Washington is the fabrication master responsible for the transformation of these once rusted out and forgotten VWs.

The very first photo of the Tillatruck!

And why do we need another bus anyway?  The Tour has always been set up to expand with its increase in popularity. Each Daddy Loaf truck and trailer is set up to carry three buses.  We wanted to make sure that as many people as possible get the chance to experience the loaf for themselves!

So why a truck? Why not? The Loafster convertible was a hugely popular addition to the fleet and we wanted the latest vehicle to be a fresh variation to keep people talking about Tillamook Cheese.

Cut it out! 4 ft. of the Tillatruck now gone!

So get ready Texas!  The Tillatruck is coming your way this March!

Meet the other buses here!

By Tillamook

I recently joined the Loaf Love Tour in San Diego to close out this year’s tour. Here’s a photo diary of the spaces and places I saw on the road.

I knew I arrived in beautiful San Diego when I saw this:

On Saturday, I joined the team at the San Diego Zoo, which looked like this:

At the end of a long day full of cheese sampling and smile sticks, we relaxed at Keegan Gerhard’s restaurant D Bar, where I ate this:

After an amazing experience watching the tour in action, I was sad to say goodbye to this:

Share your photos and stories of catching the Loaf Love Tour in action with us on Facebook!

By Amalya