Ingersoll Cheese & Agricultural Museum En coulisses

Mammoth Cheese

Mammoth Cheese

In 1866 three local cheese makers got together to hatch a plan to sell their product in England. The chief concern was how to gather attention for their Oxford County cheese. No one would notice if they sent a number of 90 pound wheels of cheese; all the other factories in England were making much the same. The solution? Go BIG! HUGE! MAMMOTH! The result was a wheel of cheese which measured almost 7 feet in diameter, was 3 feet deep and weighed 7,300 pounds! This giant cheese was successfully shown at the New York State Fair (where this picture was taken), and then it was shipped across the Atlantic. Arriving in Liverpool it then travelled the English countryside before being eventually sold off in small pieces. The cheese had aged so well in its journey that everyone loved the flavour and texture so much that they ordered more. The next year some 300,000 boxes of 90 pound rounds of cheese were exported to Great Britain. To meet that demand, the number of cheese factories in Oxford County rose from 6 to 100 by the year 1900. That mammoth cheese had created an industry!

A lifesize replica of this cheese can be seen at the Ingersoll Cheese & Agricultural Museum and is a featured attraction on the Oxford County Cheese Trail.

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