Say Cheese in Hilmar-

Company’s Visitor Center Satisfies Area Children

Hilmar Cheese Visitor Center in Hilmar, Merced County. Photo: Steve Newvine

Growing up in dairy country in upstate New York, a grade school class trip to a milk processing plant was always a possibility for me. Some things never change.

Whether it’s 1968 when I was in grade school, or fifty-five years later in Hilmar. On any given school day, it is not uncommon to find a busload of school children taking the tour of Hilmar Cheese in northern Merced County.

Grade schoolers from Ceres Unified take part in a make-believe ice cream making activity at the Hilmar Farms Visitor Center. Photo: Steve Newvine

The company’s visitor center is a hit for school groups who want something close to the home, full of interesting things to see, and that ends with ice cream.

On a breezy morning in early May, grade schoolers from Ceres Unified School District, their teachers, and several parent chaperones took the free tour in Hilmar.

The easiest way to get there is to head west for five miles at the Lander Road exit from highway 99.

“They love it here,” one of the Hilmar Cheese gift shop employees said as a customer acknowledged the large crowd of youngsters.

The view overhead looking down on the Hilmar Cheese Visitor Center Gift Shop and Café. Photo: Steve Newvine

Hilmar Cheese has been part of the northern Merced community since 1984 when eleven dairy farms banded together with an idea scribbled on a napkin at a coffee shop.

The Visitor Center honors that humble beginning with displays showing how the company has grown over the past four decades. The Center welcomes children and others just about any day of the year with the exception of the major holidays.

The tour is free, and ends at the gift shop and café. There’s also an outdoor waterfall with a walking path to give visitors a chance to walk off any extra calories from lunch at the café.

A giant mural on the side of one of the buildings at Hilmar Cheese. (upper) The same mural in a photo taken from behind the waterfalls feature at the Visitor Center. Photos: Steve Newvine

The company says twenty-percent of all the cheese sold in the US comes from Hilmar Cheese.

In many cases, the cheese is sold under a different brand name. Cheese from Hilmar Cheese is sold in over fifty countries.

In most of the tours given by the team at Hilmar Cheese, visitors learn how cheese is made with hands-on exhibits about cows. They can see workers packaging large crates of cheese.

The visitor center includes a timeline that tells the story of how Hilmar Cheese got started back in 1984. Photo: Steve Newvine

On this particular morning in May, the children were involved in a game that simulated the ice cream making process. The youngsters were wide-eyed and anxious about the game.

That might have been the result of a subtle promise by the group leader of real ice cream for everyone at the end of the tour.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His books California Back Roads and Can-Do Californians are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and at Lulu.com.

Both are also on sale right now at the Merced Courthouse Museum gift shop.

Steve will be the guest speaker at the Merced Senior Center morning meeting on May 12.

For more information, call the Center at (209) 385-8803 or email at tommysoto31@gmail.com

At that event, Steve will have his new book Rocket Reporter available.

The book is the true story of his two years in Huntsville, Alabama where he covered the first three launches of the Space Shuttle Columbia.