- What is the best way to store Cabot cheese?
Cabot cheese stored within a vacuum-sealed bag inside the refrigerator is ideal. However, consumers can remove the original wrapper and re-wrap the cheese with plastic wrap, placing the wrapped cheese inside an airtight bag in the refrigerator. This will provide the best assurance of quality.
- Why is some cheddar orange (yellow) and some white?
All cheddar made from cows’ milk is naturally white, the color of milk. However, as Cabot’s distribution expanded, it became more important to provide orange or yellow cheddar. Some say this preference dates back many centuries when cheesemakers tried to match the exact color of cheddar from Cheddar, England. Regardless of preference, we use a coloring called annatto. Annatto is from a South American plant, and does not affect the flavor or the texture of the cheese.
- Are Cabot products made with pasteurized milk?
Yes. All of Cabot's products are made from pasteurized milk. Pasteurization destroys undesirable pathogenic microorganisms, such as E. coli or Listeria. We choose to be overly cautious in this area to ensure our dairy products are free of pathogens.
- How long does a dairy cow provide milk?
Cattle are two years old before they are able to become pregnant and enter the milking herd. They will remain in the milking herd as long as they are able to provide enough milk to cover costs, typically between six and nine years.
- What does Cabot do to ensure the proper treatment of its farmers herds?
Cabot and our parent cooperative, Agri-Mark, go to great lengths to ensure the safety, health, and happiness of our cattle. Fourteen of the fifteen members on our Board of Directors are active dairy farmers. Our farmers all rely on each other to provide high quality, safe milk that is in turn converted to various world class cheeses and other dairy products, and they know you can only achieve top notch results if your cattle are healthy and happy. What exactly do we do?
We are enrolled in program called FARM, Farmers Assuring Responsible Management, whose goal is to demonstrate and verify that milk producers are committed to the highest standards in animal care. As part of this program our twenty field representatives, who visit our farms every day, are trained to ensure that there is no mistreatment of any animals on our farms.
Our cows are raised in different ways. We are a cooperative of more than 1,200 family farms where each farm is independently managed. Each farm is different in terms of herd size, landscape, soil makeup, etc so practices differs among farms. We know that the majority of the 1,200 farm families pasture their herd during the late spring and summer months when weather allows. Others allow their cows to go out and get fresh air but do not pasture them. When the cows are not out to pasture they are in free-stall barns that provide plenty of space for eating and exercising. Bedding is changed frequently every day.
- What Do Cows Eat?
The main source of sustenance for the cows in our cooperative is corn silage, grass silage, pasture and dried hay (all of these are usually grown on the farm or locally) or a combination of these types of feed. Many of our farmer-owners work with dairy nutrition experts and will supplement the feed with high energy pellet grain or other commodities if needed to balance the cow’s diet properly. The goal is to give the cows plenty of nutritious food so that they stay healthy and provide good quality milk.
- Do Cabot products contain gluten?
All of Cabot's products are gluten-free. Any and all ingredients, anti-caking agents, etc. are researched and verified to be gluten-free. For more information,
click hereNo antibiotics are in any Cabot products. Tests for antibiotics are conducted on all milk before it enters our plants according to all federal and state laws and regulations. There are serious penalties and consequences for our farmers if they were to ship milk from an animal on antibiotics. Testing throughout the milk handling process ensures that no mistakes can be made.
- Do Cabot Products contain GMOs?
Cabot products have been tested and do not contain GMO’s.
We are a cooperative of more than 1200 small family farms from all six New England states and New York State, and each farm is different in acreage, the type of land they have and the crops they are able to grow.
The main source of sustenance for the cows in our cooperative is corn silage, grass silage, pasture and dried hay (all of these are usually grown on the farm or locally) or a combination of these types of feed. Many of our farmer-owners work with dairy nutrition experts and will supplement the feed with high energy pellet grain or other commodities if needed to balance the cow’s diet properly. The goal is to give the cows plenty of nutritious food so that they stay healthy and provide good quality milk. With 80% of corn production in the U.S. being of the GMO variety, the non GMO variety is hard to obtain and is usually limited to organic farms. For this reason our farmer-owners have not banned their own use of GMOs.
