Wisconsin cheese manufacturer with vertically integrated production and food safety focus
Grande produces Italian cheeses across seven Wisconsin facilities, from milk sourcing through finished goods. The tech stack is operational rather than software-forward—Allen-Bradley, Rockwell Automation, AutoCAD, and CMMS dominate, reflecting a manufacturing-first organization. Current projects center on predictive maintenance, lean manufacturing, and sensory science (electric nose, sensory testing), while pain points cluster around equipment downtime, reliability, and labor optimization. Hiring leans heavily toward manufacturing and operations roles, signaling investment in production efficiency rather than digital transformation.
Grande Cheese Company manufactures Italian cheeses at scale across Wisconsin, operating facilities in Lomira, Brownsville, Fond du Lac, Rubicon, Wyocena, Friendship, and Juda. Founded in 1941, the company is privately held and employs between 1,001 and 5,000 people. The business spans the full supply chain from dairy sourcing through production, packaging, and distribution to independent pizzerias, Italian restaurants, and food service. Strategic initiatives focus on plant reliability, sensory quality control, food safety culture, and continuous improvement of manufacturing processes.
Allen-Bradley and Rockwell Automation for production control, AutoCAD for design, CMMS for maintenance, and Microsoft Office suite (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Visio) and Tableau for analytics and reporting.
Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. The company operates seven production facilities across Wisconsin: Lomira, Brownsville, Fond du Lac, Rubicon, Wyocena, Friendship, and Juda.
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