The UNL Dairy Store is offering a new Big Ten Conference giftbox this holiday season.
The new box is the culmination of a year of work by student employees of the Food Processing Center Dairy Pilot Plant and the dairy store.
The giftbox weighs more than 5 pounds and contains over 16 selections of meats, cheeses and honey, all processed and manufactured on UNL's East Campus.
"The response has been overwhelmingly positive," said Bryan Scherbarth, retail manager of the store.
The UNL Dairy Store and the Food Processing Center's Dairy Pilot Plant employs over three dozen student workers annually, many of whom are specializing in Food Science and Technology.
The units also offer annual internships and UCARE projects that support and advance education in the areas including nutrition, food Science and marketing. Each year the student workers produce over 15,000 pounds of cheese for the holiday season.
Different cheeses must age for different lengths of time. For example, the sharp cheddar for sale this holiday season was made in October 2010.
“You literally have an entire year’s worth of effort all geared towards the sales in December,” said Russell Parde, student employees. “It can be frustrating managing all that inventory throughout the year, especially with the ice cream production demands. However, it is neat to see how quickly it disappears come December.”
Scherbarth said the store hires extra staff during the holidays to keep up with demand.
And what do the student workers do once they have cut and packaged all that cheese? Parde said, "we start all over again making cheese for next year.”
More details at: http://go.unl.edu/vbn