WHEY COOL

MAT-SU — In a room sealed off from the dust and chaos of the construction surrounding it, Kyle Beus spent a good portion of his Thursday morning weighing, vacuum sealing and boxing cheddar cheese at Matanuska Creamery.

“You have to have the perfect amount so you get the perfect amount of pressure,” said Beus, the creamery’s manager and one of its owners, of the 20-pound blocks of yellow cheddar.

This cheese is the first product made at the dairy. By the end of the day, Beus said he expected three tons of the stuff would be sitting in the creamery’s cooler.

It’s been a long time coming, said Beus, who, with his employees and partners, has been working since November to get the creamery operational. He said he would have preferred eight or 10 months to get an operation like Matanuska Creamery going. To have a creamery under construction at the same time you’re making and packaging milk is, to say the least, chaotic. As he ran the vacuum sealer Thursday, Beus he also fielded questions from electricians and other employees.

But he’s not complaining.

The creamery is the only major taker for four local dairy farmers who had been dumping much of their milk since December, when the state-owned Matanuska Maid Dairy closed. Northern Lights Dairy in Delta Junction had taken what it could in the intervening time between Mat Maid’s closing and when Matanuska Creamery, formerly the Southcentral Dairy Venture, could begin production.

Not only is the new creamery the main buyer for local farmers, Beus said it’s also a cooperative effort.

“If the farmers don’t make it, we don’t make it,” he said. “If we don’t make it, they don’t make it.”

The plan is to have a facility to produce fluid milk up and running by early May, then move into producing ice cream by mid-May.

Down the line, Beus said the creamery will have space in the front of its building for school kids to tour the facility and observe, from behind a window, the production process. He said there’s also plans for a deli counter. Eventually, years down the line, Matanuska Creamery plans move into making other products such as cottage cheese.

A small inkling of that was on display in the company’s freezer, where a box of cheese was labeled “Special Smoke Salmon Cheese Mix,” something Beus described as akin to research and development.

Later in the afternoon, another owner, Rob Wells, who is also a Mat-Su Borough Assemblyman, showed up to help pack.

“As you can see, principals are not afraid to jump in and get their hands dirty,” Beus said.

“No, we’re getting our hands clean,” Wells joked as he scrubbed up at a sink.

Wells had nothing but good things to say about Beus and his management.

“He’s been working his tail off. He’s really a good point man for us. His heart and soul is in it,” Wells said.

Beus and Wells agreed that a lot of credit also goes to the creamery’s employees, some of whom had stayed at the creamery until 3 that morning making cheese. They wouldn’t have had to if equipment being installed next door had been online, Beus said. When it starts running, the time spent making cheese will go from five hours to 15 minutes.

But they couldn’t wait for the equipment to go online. Farmers needed them.

“It’s not like they haven’t had to make sacrifices, dumping their products,” Beus said. “So if we have to do some early morning stuff we’ll do it.”

The cheddar packaged Thursday joined some packaged last week. Beus said the cheese will fulfill about two-thirds of pre-orders through cheese futures from the Alaska Farmers and Stockgrowers Inc. Beus said previously that he’s making the cheddar at cost, with the rest of the money going straight to dairy farmers. The program has brought in more than $100,000.

“The value of the milk that they dumped was more than what they got,” Beus said, adding that the extra raised through the program helped.

Cheese futures can still be purchased by calling 746-2223.

“Cheese futures was not us,” Beus said. “[It] came to be because we had so many people coming to myself and the dairy farmers. … We had people literally wanting to hand us checks.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.