June Dairy Month - Remembering the big cheese

In honor of June Dairy Month, we thought we would highlight one of the "biggest" items in local dairy history. In 1964, the Denmark area was presented on the national stage as home to the world's largest cheese created by renowned local cheesemaker Steve Siudzinski at his Langes Corners plant. Although many may know this local historical factoid, there is far more to the story.

To understand the story of the giant block of cheese, we have to first look to its mastermind. Steve Siudzinski was born in 1899 in Glenmore and began working at the Langes Corners Cheese Plant in 1916 before taking over the factory and dubbing it "Steve's Cheese" in 1927. The factory is located between County Highway R and Steve's Cheese Road and is now owned by BelGioioso.

In 1948, Siudzinski opened a new plant that was touted as a "model of the industry". To stand out in the crowded industry, Steve prided himself in producing massive cheeses that were often purchased by grocery stores across the county to be used in promotions. These cheeses soon grew from 1,000 pounds to as big as 5,000 pounds drawing the smalltown plant national notoriety. For his efforts, he won numerous awards at cheese competitions across the country before cementing himself in dairy history in the 1960s.

The year is 1964. Lyndon B. Johnson is President, John W. Reynolds is Governor and Steve Siudzinski had his sights set on his biggest undertaking yet, producing the world's largest cheese. Working with the Wisconsin Cheese Foundation and the Wisconsin Cheese Makers, Steve planned the mammoth block for display at that year's World's Fair in New York City. Special equipment had to be built to manufacture the cheese and, while most of Steve's large creations had been round, a block shape was planned to accommodate travel by semi-truck.

A team of over two dozen cheesemakers led by Siudzinski worked over 43 hours on the giant cheese which used approximately 367,000 pounds of milk, or 17,000 quarts, the equivalent of the average daily production of 16,000 cows. The final product weighed in at 34,591 pounds and measured 6.5 feet wide by 5.5 feet high and 14.5 feet long.

On April 15, 1964, the giant cheese was given a proper send off from the Village of Denmark and departed for the World's Fair aboard the "Cheesemobile"--a custom-made, glass-sided semi-truck. The cheese was a featured attraction of Wisconsin's section of the fair for over a year with an estimated 12,000,000 people viewing the attraction at the site. After the fair, the cheese made a national tour with stops across the country before returning to Wisconsin where it was sold to the Borden Company. The cheese was recognized worldwide as the largest ever created at the time and was documented by the Guinness Book of World Records.

Steve Siudzinski would live out the rest of his life in the Denmark area, passing away at the age of 88 in 1988. Although his record has since been beaten, his name is still legendary in the local dairy industry and the community will no doubt long remember our one-time claim to fame.