We decided to take a few tours on our last day in Lodi. The first stop was in Oakdale at Oakdale Cheese. They make a wide variety of gouda cheeses from regular gouda to jalapeno, basil garlic, and many more. We got to peek in the factory windows to see the shelves of aging gouda.
Stop number two was at Blue Diamond almonds. The plant in Modesto processes 500 million pounds of almonds annually. We saw a 20 minute movie, but could not enter the plant. We tasted several flavors and purchased some chocolate covered almonds and some cinnamon covered almonds. They were pretty cheap in the gift store. Throughout this central valley we have seen many thousands of almond trees.
The third stop was Hilmar Cheese factory in Turlock. We saw a movie and a demonstration area on making cheese. They also have a huge gift shop. We filled up on the samples, Yum! You can only purchase the Hilmar brand at the gift shop because all of their cheese goes out to other companies who rebrand it. Supermarkets put their name on the labels and rebrand it. We saw cubes on cheese that ship out to others in cubes of up to 640 pounds. Hilmar cheese ends up braned Publix, Safeway, Shoprite, etc.
After a month in Lodi, we are now on the wat to Yosemite and Sequioa National Parks.
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| Oakdale Cheese |
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| Making Gouda |
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| Gouda resting |
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| Blue Diamond Almonds |
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| Almond trees |
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Hilmar Gift shop
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Deb at Hilmar's employee break area
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| Cheese production |
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