PLYMOUTH, Wis.– It’s more than just celebrating curds and whey, it’s celebrating a way of life.
Executive Director for Plymouth’s Chamber of Commerce, Mary Hauser announced on Friday the city’s third annual Cheese Capital Festival that will take place later this summer.
“This isn’t the first time this community has celebrated it’s cheesemaking heritage,” said Hauser. “In the 1950’s the city had Cheese Derby Days and it was quite an elaborate event. There were street races with horses and there was a parade and a Derby Queen. Our local companies are very supportive in this community and they wanted to bring some of it back.”
This year the festival’s founders Jeremy Schellin and Ryan Theel announced that Road America would be joining in with this year’s celebration.
“Getting Road America involved has been a big highlight for us,” said Schellin. “We have the track just outside of town here and they have their own jewel of an attraction. So we were able to work with them and they are creating a race called the Cheese Capital Cup and that is taking place on the same weekend we are doing our festival.”
There will be a parade coming from the Road of America track into downtown Plymouth on the Friday before the race and the race cars involved will be part of that celebration.
Hauser says that during the two day event, people attending the festival will be able to try different types of cheeses and see how cheese is made with the help of cheese company partners in the city including Sargento, Masters Gallery Foods, Sartori Cheese and Great Lakes Cheese.
“We have food vendors, we have kids entertainment, we have an educational center set up so children can come and see calves and pet cows,” said Hauser. “We’ll also have a cheese eating competition which has been extremely popular. We’ll limit it to ten and have people’s names drawn from a hat. Each person competeing will be give an 16 ounce block of cheddar cheese and they have five minutes to consume it all.”
The festival will also call on local restaurants to be a part of the mac n’ cheese competition where they must cook and prepare the best macaroni and cheese dish there is.
Any money that is made from the festival is invested into a local scholarship that helps local students who are interested in going to college for business type majors.
The festival will take place June 27th & 28th.
