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Fifth Town Artisan Cheese Co. Talk of the Town
Spring 2007 Volume 1

Being Different Makes All The Difference

Right from the start, our vision was to design our artisan cheese facility to be the "greenest" dairy in North America. But as we started down that road, it was clear early on that this was not going to be easy. It is one thing to build a LEED certified green office building. It is quite another to build a federally and provincially licensed dairy where you have to take into account building energy and processing energy needs (pumps, heating and cooling cheese milk, refrideration of finished cheese etc) as well as host of other sustainability goals including air quality, water conservation targets and waste management. In addition, we had to ensure we met dairy design specifications set out by OMAFRA (Ontario Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Rural Affairs), CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agengy) and the Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO). The bad news was that this meant more research than we had planned on the mechanical engineering side which delayed our construction start date. The good news is that we have now completed the process and with fabulous results. By working with a combination of geothermal, solar, and supplemental power from Bull Frog Power, we hope to achieve "zerofootprint" status. In addition, we will be able to save 67% in energy costs on the base building alone which translates into savings of 23 tons of GHG (Green House Gases) which is the equivalent of taking about 5 cars off the road. We expect this number to double when we include processing energy savings (or 10 cars).

We have also exceeded our water conservation targets. Our refridgeration will be based on water cooling technology. And the bio-wetland technology (a sort of bio-septic bed with a “green roof”) will filter whey waste (which is 94-97% water anyways) and grey wash water into clean, re-useable water on site.
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Preferred parking spots for energy efficient vehicles

In addition, we are planning to put a green energy education kiosk on site along with monitoring equipment so visitors can see both energy source and volume levels real time. Outiside lighting is motion activated and solar powered. We are now researching eco-friendly sanitizers and green packaging options.

For details on our building energy savings, visit the FT website and look under the Sustainability tab. I would also like to thank and congratulate our Green Energy Team and all suppliers we spoke to for helping us get here. The team included Francis Lapointe (Lapointe Architects), Enermodal Engineering, Jim Roth (Niagara Micro-Tech), Mark Powell (Mark Powell & Associates), Zerofootprint, Solera, GeoSmart, CEM Engineering, and a host of green advisors including Don Young (Dean of Engineering at St. Lawrence College), Gordon McAlary (Engineer, Green energy consultant), Volker Thomson, (President, St. Lawrence College) and the SWITCH Kingston organization. Without their expertise, I doubt we could have achieved our green goals.


Construction Update

Now that our mechanical engineering drawings are complete, we went to tender the project on April 25th. We expect bids back in mid May. We anticipate that construction will be able to commence within 1-2 weeks of awarding the bid. Meanwhile, we went ahead and contracted part of the project ourselves. Over the winter, the road to the building site was compelted. It involved 200 meters of road bed. In addition, 5 culverts were installed. The road was designed to carry 100 psi (the minimum required by planning department). We are aiming to have hydro to the site by the time the contractor starts. Completion is estimated to take 5-7 months. We will no more when the bids come in. Stay tuned!

Got Milk? (Goat and Sheep!)

Over the past year, we have been getting the word out that we will be in the market for approximately 5-6000 litres of goat milk per week and 1200-1500 litres of sheep milk per week for first 6-12 months of operation. If growth projections are realized, we will need approximately 15 000 litres of fresh goat milk and 5000 litres of fresh sheep milk per week in year 5 of operations. We plan to bring on qualified farms (Grade A) one at a time based on anticipated need. We currently have expressions of interest from 4 goat farms and 7 sheep farms. If you are interested in supplying FT in the future, please let us know.

Hiring Plan

As we get closer to launch time, we are also getting closer to hiring time. We have planned to hire 1 full time lead cheese maker, 1 full time apprentice (filled), 1 full time professional admin/customer service rep, a part time milk pick up driver (must have Milk Grader's license) to work 7-12 noon 6 days per week, and 2-3 part time staff to work in the retail area, wrap cheeses, turn cheese etc. If you are interested, please send us an email and resume. We will contact you as we get closer to knowing when opening day will be.
www.fifthtown.ca
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