There is a small cheese factory on Arndt Road in Oconto Falls, Wisconsin, north of Green Bay, that has been making cheese in roughly the same spot since 1908. Springside was named for an actual natural spring on the property. The name turned out to be accurate longer than anyone expected.
Springside is now in its 118th year. For most of that history it was a small community cheese factory of the kind that used to dot Wisconsin's rural landscape, operating sometimes as a cooperative and sometimes as a private business, taking milk from the farms within driving distance and turning out cheddar for the local market. The current chapter started in the fall of 1973, when Wayne R. Hintz, a dairy farmer's son who had spent more than a decade learning to make cheese and earning his license, bought the factory.
Hintz started with 60 farms supplying 17,000 pounds of milk per day. Of those 60 farms, 52 of them shipped their milk in ten-gallon milk cans. Only eight were on bulk-tank pickup. The detail is worth pausing on. It is a snapshot of how recent the modernization of Wisconsin dairy actually is. Hintz spent the next several decades building out the operation while keeping the small-batch character intact.
Four generations.
Today Springside is in its fourth generation of family involvement, with Hintz children and grandchildren active across the operation. The eldest son, Keith Hintz, manages the Pueblo, Colorado retail store, the company's first outpost outside Wisconsin. Other family members handle production, retail, and operations across the two Wisconsin locations. The plant on Arndt Road is open Monday through Saturday for retail.
What they're known for.
Springside has spent the modern era refining their cheddar. Hintz's semi-hard Bandaged Cheddar and White Cheddar have won repeated honors at national and international competitions including the American Cheese Society awards, the U.S. and World Championship Cheese Contests, and the International Cheese Awards. The Bandaged Cheddar is wrapped in cloth and aged traditionally, an old-world technique that has been largely replaced in the industry by plastic-bagged block aging.
Springside Cheese carries on a century-old legacy of producing the finest hand-crafted, natural cheeses, featuring award-winning cheddar collections and unique blends of locally inspired flavors.
Their curds.
Cheese curds are sold weekly from the plant. Fresh, squeaky, made the same morning. The Springside cheddar curd is widely cited by visitors as one of the reasons to make the drive up Highway 41 to Oconto Falls. They ship nationally now through their online store, with a customer base built largely on repeat orders from people who first tried the curds in person.
Why this recognition.
Springside qualifies for Heritage tier on the strength of their 118-year continuous operation and four generations of family involvement. They meet all six pillars of the Real Wisconsin Cheese Curd Standard. Their cheddar program is among the most awarded in Northeast Wisconsin.
