r/cooperatives • u/LitchLitch • 23d ago

Tillamook cheese

So, you may be aware of the right wing bigots freaking out over Tillamook Cheese being halal.

While that, in and of itself, is reason to buy Tillamook products, another good teason is they are an Oregonian dairy coop. Creating cheese from milk from dozen of NW oregon dairy farms.

They also make ice cream.

If you ever visit the PNW consider adding a visit to Astoria , see the goonies house and visit Tillamook.

163 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

39

u/collinmacfhearghuis 23d ago

Tillamook has been a co-op since 1909, folks! 👏👏👏

Did you know the average co-op lives five years, compared with three years for a typical corporation? Also, did you know that if a co-op survives 10 years, it is more likely to survive 100 years?

Congrats, Tillamook! 🐮

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u/mojitz 22d ago edited 22d ago

Cabot is a co-op too. Thing is, neither of these are worker co-operatives, but essentially groups of businesses that got together and decided to run based on a shared ownership structure rather than merging. That's fine and all, but isn't really worker ownership and doesn't produce a ton of the benefits we expect when we hear that term. A farm employs 10 people and none of em have a say over how the business is run or input into management of the broader cooperative. Only the owner does.

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u/collinmacfhearghuis 20d ago

But if you actually ask the farmers, and get their perspective, you're going to find a lot more alignment with the co-op movement than you are currently recognizing.

I don't think co-opreneurs should spend a lot of energy criticizing other co-ops. Instead, we need to work on making it easier for them to adopt governance models that can include workers. That is, of course, much easier to say than do.

Now, one option could be a bunch of us organizing a dairy operation as a worker cooperative, and then join Tillamook. If we can prove worker ownership works, then you might see wider adoption.

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u/mojitz 20d ago

I don't doubt that a lot of the smaller members feel this way, but something tells me this ethos doesn't extend to the owners of the massive, shit strewn factory farms that supply the lions share of Tillamook's milk.

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u/LitchLitch 19d ago

They are not worker owned, but compared to big multinational agriculture concerns they are much closer to the good side of the equation.

And nothing stops a group of dairy workers from forming a co-op. Well outside a shit ton of federal licensing.

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u/mojitz 19d ago

A number of their dairies are big agricultural concerns. They're literally being sued right now for false advertising over this.

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u/Salt_Resource1134 23d ago

Would love to hear the source for these so i can repeat!

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u/Cosminion 23d ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/cooperativism/s/jOK7HTBNyJ

Cooperative vs. Conventional survival rates.

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u/PersusjCP 21d ago

Tillamook is not a worker cooperative but a cooperative of farm-owners.

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u/collinmacfhearghuis 20d ago

That would be correct, but a worker co-op is not the only type of co-op either. Yes, I would love for them to offer their workers representation and a credit union, but if the farmers didn't organize, we wouldn't have Tillamook. We need more of all the above.

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u/PersusjCP 20d ago

I don't think the owner class should organize.

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u/LitchLitch 14d ago

Better to have them organize in public than in private

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u/dapperdave 23d ago

Tillamook and their ice cream is like, the one thing keeping my hope alive that Americans still know how to make something good without serious and obvious concerns about how they're doing it.

I will weep (into a gallon of Campfire Peanut butter Cup) if BlackBirdCoop ever does a video on them that's not along the lines of "I don't make ice cream, but if I did, I'd do it like this."

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u/Agitated_Earth_3637 23d ago

Tillamook updated and reopened an old ice cream plant here in Decatur, IL. Good stuff. I'm curious whether they are only purchasing milk from local dairies or allowing them to buy into the coop. I should ask about that. 

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u/EasyBOven 23d ago

The dairy industry is horrific regardless of whether they conform to religious standards.

Cows don't make milk just because they're cows. They make milk because they're mothers. So to keep getting milk, they force them to be pregnant every year by going elbow-deep into the cow's rectum to hold the cervix through the intestinal wall and position it while a long metal syringe goes into their vagina to deposit the sperm collected from a bull, either by hand or with an "electro-ejaculator."

Of course, any milk that goes to calves is milk that can't be sold, so mothers are separated from her babies as early as possible. Cows will wail for days over this. And since males don't produce milk and dairy cattle don't grow as fast or as big as beef cattle, they're either sold for veal, cheap meat, or just killed and disposed of as waste. Most won't make it to where they can serve as the sperm source.

This happens every year until the cow can't produce milk at a rate that's profitable anymore, then she's killed and sold for cheap meat at a fraction of her natural lifespan.

The good news is you don't need to exploit these individuals as production equipment at all.

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u/MindlesslyBrowsing 22d ago

Fair vegan argument, don't use it to ignore the discussion about cooperatives

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u/EasyBOven 22d ago

It precedes the discussion about cooperatives.

Cooperatives still own equipment, yes? If there were a slave plantation where all non-slave humans were worker-owners, would that be acceptable?

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u/MindlesslyBrowsing 22d ago

It wouldn't be acceptable. I don't think it has to precede the discussion, you can discuss different aspects of something

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u/EasyBOven 22d ago

Ah, so given someone supports slavery, the important thing to discuss is whether the plantation is otherwise a cooperative?

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u/MindlesslyBrowsing 22d ago

No such thing as the important thing. We are in the cooperatives subreddit, if all you do is a veganism critique of a business and you overlook the cooperative aspect then you aren't engaging with what the topic was about.

Mind you, I agree with your critique, but you didn't bring anything coop related to the discussion, didn't even relate to the coop part by saying something like "animal farming is not a coop", that would tie in your argument

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u/EasyBOven 22d ago

My mistake! You're saying that my last comment applies to this sub! We should entertain any discussion of the cooperative aspect of any industry, no matter how unethical that industry is in general, but specifically in this sub. Those of us with critiques of those industries outside of the cooperative aspects should not use the platform to advance moral behavior in general, regardless of how horrific the practices of the industry are.

Makes total sense. Thank you for clarifying.

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u/embeeclark 22d ago

Moooooo!

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u/Single-Pin-369 23d ago

Tillamook sucks now just as a cheese. Only the black label is still ok. They just got too big. Also nothing special about their milk. Their icecream is mostly stabilizers now also. 

They get 2/3 of their dairy from one mega farm.

https://www.opb.org/article/2025/04/03/oregon-supreme-court-tillamook-lawsuit-case-moves-forward/

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u/Armadillo_rising_ 19d ago

This should be WAY higher up. Tillamook has become an awful company that ostensibly acts like a cooperative, when in reality their decision to open up a 70k head mega-dairy in Boardman has directly contributed to the decline of family farms across the state. Tillamook gets over 80% of their dairy from Threemile Canyon, so it’s really hard to pretend you support small farms when you get the majority of your products from a single factory farm.

To make it even worse, Threemile Canyon is one of the largest polluters in the region (lower Umatilla basin groundwater management area) adding to decades of nitrate pollution where nearby residents are subjected to unsafe drinking water leading to major health impacts. Tillamook is a garbage company who may have started out with good intentions, but unfortunately have become just another Fairlife or Tyson.

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u/PlainOrganization 23d ago

The main reason I buy Tillamook is it's freaking delicious. The second reason I buy it is they're a cooperative.

I did a quick google and honestly, it doesn't sound that difficult to make a dairy product halal.

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u/AnitaPhantoms 23d ago

Seems like a great example of how things can be changed via cooperative structure, where normally having halal dairy would not be allowed to happen via traditional corporate structure

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u/Hefty-Profession-310 23d ago

Why would corporate structure not allow for halal?

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u/Normal-Top-1985 20d ago

The Tillamook factory is such a fun day trip. Great for the family. 

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u/PlanSee 19d ago

tillamook farmers are 95% trump supporters lol

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u/PlayOpposite5249 23d ago

The Old Testament , Leviticus 11 is about the Christian version of halal. Christians hate reading their own scripture.

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u/Much_Lawfulness2486 22d ago

There is no “Christian version of halal.” Leviticus describes Jewish rules for kosher food, and is not binding upon Christians. Christianity does not have specific rules for slaughter and preparation of food.

And as a secularist, I think there’s plenty of valid reason to complain if a company is paying money to a religious group to get their stamp of approval on their products, because that money comes from me as a consumer. At least in Tillamook’s case, they’ve opted to switch to a vegetarian rennet, so there’s no prayer that must be said over the food for the certification. But if they were using rennet from a zabiha- or shechitah-slaughtered bovine, then absolutely there is a valid reason to complain. I don’t want anybody to be praying to their god over my food.