The Wisconsin Dairies Cooperative is the largest dairy cooperative in the Midwest. The organization includes over six thousand milk producers in Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois, eleven manufacturing plants, and seven transfer stations. Besides processing milk the Cooperative manufactures butter, cheese, powdered milk and evaporated milk. Member owned and controlled, it keeps its constituents informed of the dairy products market and represents them in dairy marketing and legislative matters. Established in March of 1963, the Wisconsin Dairies Cooperative represents a consolidation of two organizations: the Wisconsin Cooperative Creamery Association of Union Center and the Wisconsin Creamery Company Cooperative of Sauk City.
The Wisconsin Creamery Company Cooperative of Sauk City began as the Wisconsin Creamery Company. The original articles of incorporation were adopted by a group of local area farmers on January 18, 1890. The company purchased land for a plant along the Wisconsin River and sold stock for a cooperative. In 1938 the company appended the word “Cooperative” to its name and revised its articles of incorporation. In 1945 it purchased the Black Earth Dairy Cooperative and merged with the Sumpter Cooperative Creamery and the Springfield Creamery. Also in that year the Cooperative began to serve the patrons of the Cassel Cheese Factory after the factory closed in November. In 1948 the Cooperative built a new plant across the street from its old one, and over the next two years the organization began the manufacture of nonfat dry milk solids and cottage cheese. Four hundred and fifteen area farmers were members of the cooperative by 1950.
The Wisconsin Cooperative Creamery Association had its beginnings in 1922. In that year fourteen creameries in the Baraboo Valley formed the Wisconsin Cooperative Creamery Federation in an effort to solve mutual problems in quality control. Three other creameries joined, and in 1924 the Federation leased the Union Center Creamery building. The organization adopted articles of incorporation on April 27, 1932, and was re-incorporated on March 4, 1936 as the Wisconsin Cooperative Creamery Association. In the late 1930s and 1940s the Association's business grew and its activities diversified. It built an ice cream mix and butter printing plant in 1940. When the demand for nonfat dry milk solids grew at the beginning of World War II, the Association began to manufacture this product and, in 1944, the organization reached an agreement with the Federal Government on a Lend-Lease project for building a milk drying plant. This agreement provided a ten-year amortization plan which enabled the Association to eventually become the sole owner of the plant. Between 1960 and 1962 many plants merged with the Wisconsin Cooperative Creamery Association. These plants included the Hillsboro Cooperative Creamery Association (1960); La Valle Cooperative Creamery, Wonewoc Cooperative Dairy, and Mount Tabor Cooperative Creamery (1960); New Lisbon Cooperative Creamery (1960); Ontario Cooperative Creamery (1960); Troy and Honey Creek Cooperative Creamery (1960); Oakdale Cooperative Butter Association (1961); Wilton Cooperative Creamery (1961); and Cazenovia Farmers Cooperative Creamery (1962).
In March of 1963 the membership of both the Wisconsin Cooperative Creamery Association and the Wisconsin Creamery Company Cooperative voted overwhelmingly to dissolve the two separate organizations and to consolidate into the Wisconsin Dairies Cooperative. Since then the new Cooperative has expanded through eleven mergers or acquisitions. Organizations that have joined the Cooperative since 1963 include the Richland Cooperative Creamery Company and the Excelsior Cooperative Creamery Company (both in 1964); Kilbourn Cooperative Creamery Company (1965); Hillpoint Cooperative Dairies (1967); Garden Valley Cooperative Creamery (1974); Farmers Cooperative Creamery Company (1975); Schurman Brothers Butter and Cheese (1977); Bletsoe Dairy, Farmers Cooperative Creamery Association, and Meadow Land Dairy Association (all in 1979); and Universal Foods Cheese Plant (1981).
