Wisconsin cheesemakers name their 2026 impact winners
The state's cheese trade body honours four companies today in Madison for retention, carbon targets, advocacy and food donations, not for the cheese itself.
The Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association hands out its 2026 Member Impact Awards on 23 September in Madison, honouring four companies for workplace, environmental and community programmes rather than for any single cheese.
Sigma Foods' Darlington plant takes Employer of the Year after lifting first-year employee retention from 59 percent to 82 percent and reaching 94 percent long-term retention among staff with five or more years on the job. The plant credits structured training, a leadership-development track and bilingual resources for the shift, in an industry where processing-line turnover is a persistent cost.
Nelson-Jameson wins the Sustainable Stewardship Award for committing to Scope 1 and 2 carbon neutrality by 2035. A solar project under construction at its Jerome, Idaho facility is expected to offset 3,115.5 metric tons of CO2 a year, and the company recovered hundreds of tons of waste in 2025 through the U.S. Dairy Sustainability Alliance.
This year's honourees demonstrate meaningful impact through advocacy, investment in employees, environmental stewardship, and community service.
Advocacy and food donations recognised
Kerry takes Advocate of the Year for lobbying against Wisconsin Assembly Bill 550, which would have changed dairy labelling rules, and against the Childhood Diabetes Reduction Act; staff also took part in a federal advocacy fly-in and a state advocacy day in Madison.
Lifeway Foods wins the Culture of Excellence Award, citing a $10,000 donation to California wildfire relief in January 2025 and more than 230,000 servings of kefir and farmer cheese given to food-insecurity programmes. The company also points to three women vice-presidents in its leadership team.
“This year’s honourees demonstrate meaningful impact through advocacy, investment in employees, environmental stewardship, and community service,” said Sara Schmidt, WCMA’s membership director.
A trade body, not a taste panel
Unlike the World Cheese Awards, which judge the product itself, WCMA's Member Impact Awards score conduct: how a company treats its workforce, its supply chain and its neighbours. Wisconsin makes more cheese than any other US state, and the association has run the awards for several years as a counterweight to competitions built purely around flavour and texture.
The four winners were selected from a members-only nomination pool that closed on 8 September, with judging handled internally by WCMA staff rather than an outside panel.
