At Dovre Ysteri, both employees and cheese get medals!

There are now a total of 7 out of 13 employees who have received the Medal for long and faithful service, and our skilled improvement manager Ymbjørg Øwre is the last to go. It says something about good craftsmanship, and the proof is the Silver Medal in the Cheese World Championship for Dovre Ysteri Brie Pepper in both 2018 and 2019!

Have you ever eaten Norwegian brie or camembert? Then there is a high probability that it has been approved by Ymbjørg Øwre at TINE Meieriet Dovre.

Norway's second smallest TINE Meieri is located in Dovre and has 13 employees and one temporary worker. Despite its size, a whopping 230 tonnes of white mold cheese is produced annually, which is distributed throughout Norway under the brand name Dovre Ysteri. One of the people who works here is improvement manager Ymbjørg Øwre.

- It is very exciting to work with white mold. It is a cheese that develops from day one until it has expired. It takes hard work and vigilance to get a good product, she says.

Had to learn everything

When Ymbjørg finished at the Agricultural College in Vågå in 1975, she went home to her parents.

- Then I got word from my father that I had got a job at the dairy in Lesja as a temporary control assistant, recalls Ymbjørg.

Then the journey continued to the dairy at Dovre.

- First I learned everything in all departments here at Dovre and became quality manager after that. I also went to vocational school in Trondheim for two years and worked on the side. Now I'm in the laboratory and am improvement manager, says Ymbjørg.

From brown cheese to brie

The small TINE Dairy was established in 1918 and made traditional cheese such as brown cheese. When brown cheese sales began to decline towards the end of the 1980s, then dairy manager Odd Stigen took a bold step. He had been on an inspiration trip to France and now wanted to start producing white mold cheese. Taking the step from brown cheese to brie is both a microbiological and technical quantum leap.

- Food safety is alpha and omega. A lot goes into the bacteriological and the chemical. When the milk arrives in the cheese vat, the product is exposed for 8 to 13 days before the cheese arrives in packaging, and then cleanliness and hygiene apply. Most of the time I take samples, read samples, see results and take listeria samples, says Ymbjørg.

- White mold cheese is a living product, and in addition we have competition from imported cheese, so it is important to have good quality, she emphasizes.

Medal in the World Cheese Championships

And they have good quality. In fact, so good that the dairy's brie with pepper received a silver medal in the World Cheese Championship in both 2018 and 2019.

- We have developed both an organic brie and brie with pepper here. It's very fun to experiment, says Ymbjørg.

Seven of the thirteen have received the Medal

Ymbjørg is not the only one at the dairy who enjoys work and has been there for a long time.

- I have been responsible for the presentation of three medals since I started here, but of the thirteen employees, seven have now received the Medal, says dairy manager Sigrid Svanborg.

- Two of those who received the Medal two years ago were really only supposed to help ensure the transition from brown cheese to white mold cheese, but they are still here. Two other employees who were with the packing plant are also still here and work with salting and turning. There is probably only one who has received the Medal who has retired.

Sigrid believes that part of the reason why more employees stay for so long is ownership of what they do and well-being in the workplace.

- We have been working steadily on durability and increasing production. We have strong ownership of the product and have done most of it ourselves.

- Those who received the Medal first also said that they enjoy being with the others. After all, it is primarily about the strong collegial cohesion that makes you come back year after year. When you know the others in the group, it is difficult to be ill one day. And then there is a bit of self-righteousness in the group, that you perform according to the culture of where you are employed, says Sigrid.

A wonderful colleague

Earlier this autumn, it was Ymbjørg's turn to receive the Medal after 30 years of effort at the dairy in Dovre.

- Ymbjørg is a fantastic colleague, professionally skilled, good in many areas, quality-conscious and forward-looking, sees opportunities in how to work smart, simpler and practical, where you can save money and at the same time comply with the quality standard, Sigrid boasts.

She also has experience from production and has previously been a cheesemaker, so she can quickly identify weaknesses and opportunities. She is also a good strength and help for me as a manager who has no previous experience of this type of production.

Important with honoring

Sigrid believes it is important to honor employees.

- For me personally, it is certainly one of the biggest things I do as an employer. It testifies to a successful workplace that retains solid workers. When it comes to the working environment, it is clear that as a manager you must have a hand in the game of building and preserving the good environment, but it is first and foremost up to the employees to contribute to this, says Sigrid.

Securing the future

The small Tine dairy in Dovre is facing an exciting time. Since 2016, plans to expand have been worked on, and now it's finally underway.

- We are going to expand, build better and bigger changing rooms and lock solutions, a chemical room and a washing station for everything that goes through pipes. Step two will be to get the old filling machine out and bring in a new one and during that period we will have to stop production. After all, we deal with cheese that does not have too long a shelf life, explains Sigrid.

She believes the upgrade will only be positive for the future, also for the local environment at Dovre.

- There are few other industrial workplaces here, so this upgrade is very important. We are securing the future with what is being done now, both for TINE, but also the consumer and what that means in terms of opportunities on the product development front, concludes Sigrid.