When the Morning Star, a schooner commissioned by the dairy farmers of Tillamook County, delivered cheese from Tillamook on the Oregon Coast to Portland, Oregon, in 1909, people weren’t positive simply how a lot dairy goodness was aboard. However a revamped Morning Star will ship an exacting 1,909 kilos of cheese to at least one recipient because the Tillamook County Creamery Affiliation celebrates Nationwide Cheddar Day by operating a giveaway with the grand prize of a boatload of cheese. 

The giveaway comes because the Tillamook cooperative celebrates Nationwide Cheddar Day on February 13, the identical day the co-op was fashioned in 1909. Whereas Tillamook has celebrated Nationwide Cheddar Day because the vacation was established in 2019, the model now desires to go all in with the festivities for its 116th 12 months. 

Cheddar lovers can enter to win a virtually total metric ton of Tillamook cheese. One winner will get chosen randomly for the cheese haul after the giveaway closes on February 20, and the primary 15,000 entrants obtain a free cheese coupon value as much as $6. Whereas the boatload finally totals 1,909 kilos, Tillamook tells Meals & Wine that the precise boat supply options 100 kilos of a mixture of Tillamook’s cheese varieties and an extra 1,809 kilos value of Tillamook cheese merchandise within the type of coupons. (In any case, it will be tough to eat 1,909 kilos of cheese earlier than it expires.) 

“February 13 is a celebratory day for Tillamook,” Kate Boltin, government vp of promoting on the Tillamook County Creamery Affiliation, tells Meals & Wine. “Not solely is it the cheesiest meals vacation — aka Nationwide Cheddar Day — but it surely’s additionally the date in 1909 when our founding farmers every pitched in $10 to type the Tillamook cooperative and formalize a dedication to create high quality dairy merchandise, one thing we stock via this present day.” 

The Morning Star is a hyperlink to the founding farmers’ early supply methodology. “All of it goes again to greater than a century in the past, when Tillamook dairy farmers constructed the Morning Star, a ship used solely to share our love of unbelievable dairy past the Oregon Coast,” Boltin says. “Now you’ll find the Morning Star icon on each Tillamook product.” 

Within the 1800s, as dairy farming grew in Tillamook County, the farmers wished a technique to promote cheese and butter to the bustling port in Portland. However the Coastal Mountains sat between the 2 places and no roads related them on the time. So, the reply was retooling an outdated schooner and crusing up the Pacific Ocean to the Columbia River to Portland. Sadly, the primary vessel was shipwrecked throughout its preliminary outing. A second schooner was restored for a similar function, and this one quickly ran aground. 

The farmers determined to construct a 3rd vessel. This one they named the Morning Star of Tillamook. It set sail in 1855 because the county’s first registered ship and efficiently introduced Tillamook’s dairy bounty to Portland on the 38-foot-long boat. Within the course of, it gave what finally turned the Tillamook County Creamery Affiliation a logo of the world’s historical past and dairy dedication. 

“For over a century, our farmer-owned cooperative has shared the identical willpower that impressed these aboard the historic Morning Star,” Boltin says. “For the reason that ship’s maiden voyage, we’ve continued to ship an unwavering dedication to high quality components you may style. Generations of dairy followers have fueled our ardour for delivering premium cheddar, and that’s why we’re going overboard this 12 months by gifting a literal boatload of cheese.”

The Morning Star brand is essential to Tillamook’s branding and is prominently displayed on the packaging. The model’s origin story is tied to its fashionable dairy creations, together with a cheddar cheese that, in 2024, gained the title of greatest cheddar on the earth on the World Cheese Awards. 

The Tillamook County Creamery Affiliation, a Licensed B Corp, operates manufacturing amenities in each Tillamook, Oregon, and Boardman, Oregon, and employs greater than 1,100 people. The Tillamook Creamery is the biggest vacationer attraction on the Oregon Coast with a couple of million guests yearly. It additionally encompasses a full-size reproduction of the Morning Star on-site. Alas, the reproduction isn’t filled with cheese.