Basic Information:

Address: 4175 Highway 101 North, Tillamook, OR 97141

Telephone: 800.542.7290

Website: https://www.tillamook.com/cheese-factory/index.html 

Fees: Free 

Parking is free.

Tillamook Factory Tour: 

Walking through your grocery store’s dairy section, you may have come across the Tillamook Cheeses. Or perhaps you ran into their various flavored ice creams in the ice cream isle.  But either way, if you have tried their products, you should have become a fan of them. You may have even wondered what their story is.

Tillamook is a Co-op business. This means that the farmers that help produce the products are the owners of the company.  The profits from the company are used to help the farmers and provide support for the families that live and work there.  The company got its start in 1894 when the famous cheese maker Peter McIntosh brought his expertise to Tillamook County and started making cheddar cheese. Tillamook still uses the same recipe for their cheddar cheese.

Now on to the good stuff.  When visiting the Tillamook Factory – the tour is a free experience.  It is a self guided factory tour and you can take your time visiting the various locations around the factory.  It is a pretty easy layout and you will have ample time to visit each corner.  Make sure you visit the second story where you get a glimpse of the cheese factory floor.  It is amazing watching these large blocks of cheese come off the line.

After visiting the factory floor and production line, you will need to get in line and sample the various cheese flavors that is produced at the factory.  Then of course you will need to follow that up with one or four scoops of ice cream. There is a restaurant at the factory in which you can grab a meal (Breakfast or lunch).

Currently the visitors center is being rebuilt and should be ready by 2018.  However, the factory floor and tasting stations are still operating and available for visitors.