I recently travelled to the Minneapolis area for a business trip and was kind of surprised to find that there really isn’t a lot of cheese made in Minnesota. However, it seems like, because Minnesota is so close to Wisconsin, they get most of their cheese from there.

So, what does Minnesota produce?

Minnesota is best known for it’s production of oats, sugar beets, sweet corn and flaxseed. But, another interesting thing that I recently found out also is that Minnesota has a pretty large meatpacking industry.

In the 1940s through the 1960s a lot of big city meatpackers moved to the midwest to set up shop in order to stay competitive, and navigate away from burdensome unions.

What does this all mean?

I don’t even know. But, I suppose that the development of the meatpacking industry, not only in Minnesota, but in the entire midwest led to the concentration of dairy farms in other states, e.g. Wisconsin. Although this is a wildly unfounded hypothesis, it is how I’m justifying Minnesota’s underwhelming cheese production.

Upon second thought, I’m wondering:

Is it really that difficult to raise cattle for slaughter and at the same time sell their milk?

I mean, I would think that in smaller farms they might be able to do both… right? I mean, you have to raise cows in order to slaughter them, so there surely is a big enough window to sell some dairy. But, I guess dairy is the not the focus in this situation. If any of you have an answer to my question please let me know in the comments—I am very interested to know more.

Stay tuned to find out which cheese I ate in Minnesota.