Sustainability in our Creameries

Our creameries are where our talented employees make magic happen; the alchemy of turning fresh milk into award-winning dairy products. 

The creameries are also home to a wide variety of sustainability initiatives, paying particular attention to energy, water, waste, and safety. A key part of sustainability is recognizing opportunities for improvement, managing resources, and identifying solutions. Through collaboration with key partners including the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, supply chain and service partners, and through employee-led initiatives at our own facilities, we are actively working to better manage our impacts. Learn more about Our Pledge to Sustainability. 

Upcycling and Resource Conservation 

In 2014, we invested in a project that would save water, conserve resources, and increase productivity at our Cabot campus. Using a process that extracts water from whey (a natural byproduct of cheesemaking), through reverse osmosis, we upcycle 50% of all water on our Cabot Campus. The water is filtered, pasteurized, and disinfected before being used for things like cleaning out Cabot milk trucks. To further conserve water and keep up with increased capacity at our Cabot Campus, we upgraded our Milk Receiving Bay clean-in-place (CIP) system in 2023. This system increased our water recovery ability and minimized the volume of wash water we generate. In addition to 700,000 gallons/year of water savings, this system reduces cleaning product usage, truckloads of water, diesel fuel expenses, and wash water truck mileage.  

Examples of resource conservation at our Cabot Campus include several product packaging projects over the past several years: 

• In 2022, our sourcing and procurement team reduced the amount of cardboard in our corrugated boxes. This process, called “light weighting,” saves 419,000 sq. feet of corrugated cardboard annually, the equivalent of seven football fields. 
• In 2023, we switched up our cultured containers from an injection mold technology to thermoform technology. Thermoform technology consumes less plastic resin and allows for greater precision.  By moving to thermoformed containers, we reduced our cultured packaging plastic resin usage by 19%, inbound corrugated cases by 17% (more containers in a case), and inbound pallet usage by 18% (more containers on a pallet).  
• After receiving and executing a grant from Northeast Dairy Business Innovation Center (NE-DBIC) from 2023-2025 to research sustainable packaging alternatives, Cabot transitioned our 8 oz. dairy blocks to 30% Post Consumer Recycled (PCR) Packaging. This packaging change results in 30% less single-use plastic, which leads to a 23% decrease in fossil fuel emissions and 19% decrease in water usage. 

From updating our yogurt container configuration, “light weighting” our corrugated boxes, to transitioning our 8 oz. dairy blocks to 30% PCR packaging we are managing resources and making incremental environmental impacts while maintaining product quality, taste, and consistency. 

Circularity Initiatives 

At Cabot, we are proud of our farmers’ high-quality milk and are committed to using every drop to make our award-winning dairy products. Our network of creameries ensures that it happens through a series of innovative processes. During the cheesemaking process, milk is turned into curds and whey. The curds are made into cheese, leaving whey — a watery liquid that’s rich in protein, lactose and other vitamins—that is too good to waste. Through reverse osmosis, we are able to remove water from the whey at our Cabot campus. From there, our whey is transported to our Middlebury, VT facility where it is dried into whey powder. These whey powders are shelf stable and a great protein source for things like nutritional supplements, protein powders, and more, ensuring that our high-quality milk has many uses. 

Any excesses from cheesemaking and whey drying at our Middlebury campus are processed by an anaerobic digester. Inspired by the success of anaerobic digesters on our farms, we partnered with PurposeEnergy in 2024 to create a digester for our "neighborhood" of manufacturing facilities in Middlebury, VT. This digester offers Cabot a more purposeful way to use the dairy processing byproduct which would typically be considered as waste in cheesemaking. Beyond reducing emissions from trucking, this digester is anticipated to process 100,000 gallons of byproduct per day, transforming it into clean water, natural fertilizer, and renewable electricity - enough to power hundreds of homes each year.  

Farm Powered 

Our award-winning butter is made with Real Farm Power 

Butter was the first product we made at Cabot, and beyond its award-winning taste, it has a strong sustainability story. Through a partnership with co-op member Barstow’s Longview Farm, since 2014, the byproducts from our butter making process are fed into their digester, which creates fertilizer, heat, and electricity. What electricity the farm doesn’t use goes back to the grid, where Cabot procures it to churn our award-winning butter. In the true spirit of cooperation, this closed loop that Cabot and the Barstow’s have created shows what’s possible when people work together to solve shared challenges.