Behind the Counter Video Transcript Below:
I'm Ian Behm, the President of Pine River Pre-Pack. I've been here 14 years in various roles throughout the company and have seen tremendous growth during that time.
Pine River dates back to the late 1800s when the Lindeman family settled in this area, and it all started with this little house here. It wasn't until 1948, when Phil C. Lindeman started getting involved with the company—and fast forward to 1963—Pine River Pre-Pack was fully incorporated.
At that time, we started as a cut and wrap facility, using the trim ends to start making cheese. Spread through the 1970s, the business started to grow and change, but it wasn't until the 1980s when we got actively involved in the fundraising industry which helped get our product outside of Wisconsin.
Phil A. Lindeman, and his wife Mary, were instrumental in getting our brand and our product awareness to all the customers that we currently service today.
It wasn't until 1990 when we did our first major addition and we added on a new cold storage warehouse to be able to bring in more raw materials and hold more finished product.
One of our biggest upgrades was in 2010. We built a brand-new production facility and that's where we still make production today.
We saw tremendous growth over the early 2000s and all the way through into 2023 when the ownership of the company transitioned from the Lindeman family on to the four new Owners.
Hi, I'm Chauncey Behm, I'm the Director of Operations here at Pine River Pre-Pack.
One of the things that drew me to Pine River was the high-quality gourmet brand image that the company has, wanting to be a part of something that you can manufacture and take pride in and knowing the rigorous process that we go through when we grade Cheddar.
When we look at all of our ingredients, it makes you proud to be a part of it. And when you put out a product that is so delicious when you get to enjoy with friends and family and even strangers at a grocery store, and they tell you how darn good your product is.
It sure makes you feel proud of what you do. So when the renovate at our lunch room and expanded a few years back, we decided to have a full kitchenette so that we could cook and we could use a stove.
Today, we made some mashed cauliflower and added a couple of different flavors of our cheese spread to try that out on the group as a side dish with a lunch that we're preparing. So, that's a fun aspect of it.
We made breakfast pizzas a few weeks ago, some breakfast sandwiches, fun to be able to take our product, feed our team, and then also [get] good feedback: "That's too salty here. I don't like that. It was too sweet."
Whatever it may be, it's fun to try it out on our team because they know as we post stuff on social media, we get it out to the consumers. They've tried it, they've had it, they can speak to it, they can take pride in it.
Hi, I'm Nicole Hochkammer. I'm the Quality Assurance Specialist here at Pine River Pre-Pack.
So, here at Pine River, you're more of a family member than you are a number. They truly care about you and work-life balance is important to them here.
They also like to encourage a lot of teams so that office and production intertwine together outside of work.
I am Dustin Smith, I am the Production Manager at Pine River Pre-Pack. What I like most about working here is the chance for advancement from within the company.
You know, I started here and I was just on the production floor and in six years, I've become the Production Manager.
Chauncey and Ian have really helped me grow, not only professionally but personally, and it's got me to where I am today.
Be sure to watch the full video above!
