You may know Meister for their delicious cheese. But what you may not know is Meister also makes whey protein concentrate for protein products.
Using the leftover whey byproduct that is extracted from making cheese, Meister has found sustainable and efficient ways to still use that whey. Rather than going to a landfill the Meister family created Muscoda Protein Products. That way it can still be used as nutritional products for consumption.
“We’re making two products at Muscoda protein; whey protein concentrates for use in nutritional drinks and bars, and diet drinks.” Meister tells us. “And the lactose milk sugar we refine and dry that and that’s used also in dairy products like yogurt. And a lot of it is used in infant formula.”
Muscoda Protein Products was originally a joint production process plant with other small cheesemakers in the area to help process whey content. Starting in 1981 by Stanley Meister, Muscoda Protein Products has grown through the years even as cheese plants disappeared.
As smaller cheese plants started to fall off, Meister was almost left with a whey processing facility with no whey content to process. Until Meister Cheese took off with business in the early 2000’s. Now they handle all of their own whey internally.
Both of the cheese and protein plants run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week except for scheduled maintenance. At the whey processing plant, it takes about 40 associates to keep it running 24/7. And for the cheese plant it takes about 60-70 employees to keep that running 24/7.
“We like to be a small-town family employer.” Meister explains. As the family business is now 4 generations deep. They have always kept the community and employees at the forefront. Having a wall leading to the breakroom that has pictures of all of the associates and the years they have worked. “We like to treat everyone like family.”
“Not a lot of people spend a lot of time thinking about whey.” Meister informs us, when asked about what he wishes more people knew about Muscoda Protein Products. “When we talk about what we do, they’re somewhat amazed that all of this volume is left over from the cheese making process and there is still nutritional value left”.
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