Jensen Cheese plant honoured Posted on Dec 17, 2010

 By Daniel Pearce, SIMCOE REFORMER

The factory in eastern Ontario that makes Jensen Cheese was honoured recently by Lennox-Addington County, which named it manufacturer of the year.

"They're a great corporate citizen, a good manufacturer, and provide good jobs," Stephen Paul, economic development manager for the county, said when asked why the plant received the award.

The factory also has "a good environment" and "a very loyal staff" and engages in fundraising activities, Paul added.

"It mirrors and parallels what our community is all about."

Jensen Cheese is known throughout Ontario and Canada for its high-quality product -- cheese made for taste rather than mass marketing.

Its set up is a little unusual in that its headquarters are in a house on Evergreen Hill Road in Simcoe, but its product is made in a factory five hours away in Wilton, Ont., near Kingston.

About once every three weeks, a transport truck arrives at the Simcoe store, where the cheese is unloaded, kept in storage, cured further, and then sold to the public.

The business was started in Simcoe by Arne Munck Jensen, an immigrant from Denmark, in 1925, and has always used cheese made at the Wilton plant.

In 1950, the factory came up for sale and Jensen bought it.

Current owner Eric Jensen said he still uses the same methods his father learned in Denmark.

"There's no additives and we use 100% whole milk. We cure most of it in Simcoe."