Chuck Eggert, the founder of Pacific Foods, purchased Willamette Valley Cheese Co., reports the Salem Statesman Journal. Founded in 2002, Willamette Valley Cheese sells its products at grocery stores and farmers' markets throughout the Northwest. The company operates a creamery and tasting room just west of Salem, Ore. Pacific Foods makes soups, broths, non-dairy beverages, and more. Eggert sold the company to Campbell's Soup Co. for $700 million in 2017.
Williamette Valley Cheese faced backlash in 2017 when the Oregon Department of Agriculture shut down the creamery's dairy, Volbeda Farms, for allowing manure to flow into Spring Valley Creek. A Statesman Journal investigation found that the dairy violated its wastewater permit for years and had been cited more than 200 times over the previous nine years for food safety violations. It also came to light that the company's cheese was made with milk from the Darigold cooperative and falsely labeled "farmstead cheese," in violation of American Cheese Society rules.
Volbeda sold the dairy to Turley farms in January 2018, and in September, owner Brian Turley leased it to Harlan Miersma, who operates another dairy near Salem, according to the report. Full Story
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