Armstrong's cheese story

For more than a century, Armstrong has been cheese country. This is the story of how that happened.

The first creamery, 1902

In 1902, settlers in the Armstrong district pooled money through the sale of shares to build a creamery. The Municipal Council refused to support the project and refused to grant a tax exemption. The settlers built it anyway. The first buttermaker was a Mr. Hughes, later replaced by Alfred Slater, under whom the operation prospered. By 1923, the creamery on Davis Creek was producing 12,000 pounds of butter per month.

In 1916 the creamery was reorganized as the North Okanagan Creamery Association (NOCA), collecting milk from dairy farms from Mara Lake south to Vernon. In 1925 NOCA was sold to Pat Burns and Company and became the Okanagan Valley Co-Operative Creamery, though the NOCA brand name continued.

A fire destroyed the Armstrong creamery in 1927. The Vernon City Council moved quickly to offer Pat Burns and Co. incentives to centralize creamery operations in Vernon. The Armstrong Council, again, declined to compete for the business. Local dairymen had to ship their milk to Vernon or Salmon Arm, or get out of dairy entirely. Armstrong lost one of its core industries.

The cheese factory, 1938

A cheesemaker named Charles Busby moved to Armstrong in 1937 and saw an opportunity. Once again the community organized, selling shares at $10 each to build a plant. The Armstrong Cheese Co-operative Association was formally incorporated in 1939, with A.E. Sage as president.

In 1941, Joe Mullen was hired from Didsbury, Alberta as cheesemaker. The hiring letter listed two selling points: Armstrong had seven churches, and it had running water. Mullen accepted sight unseen and moved his family in November 1941.

What followed was an extraordinary run. Cheese production went from 190,000 pounds in 1941 to 480,000 pounds in 1942 to 820,000 pounds in 1943. By 1943 the Armstrong Cheese Co-operative was the second-largest cheese producer in Canada. The Association built a controlled-temperature curing room, won two second-prize ribbons at the 1942 British Empire Show in Belleville (out of 385 entries from across Canada), and shipped milk to Vernon for only one day after a 1943 plant fire before resuming operation.

By 1944, Joe Mullen was named manager as well as cheesemaker. Armstrong Cheese was known across the province for quality.

The expansion and the end

In 1948 the Association expanded into fluid milk by buying the City Dairy from Myers Fransden of Armstrong. The Association added ice cream and cottage cheese under the Valley Dairy brand. New plants opened in Penticton (1951), Vernon (1952), Kelowna (1952), Kamloops (1953), and Salmon Arm (1954).

The expansion did not survive the 1950s. After 1952, unionization changed the cost structure. After 1954, the BC Milk Board set both the price paid to producers and the wages paid to employees. The Association could no longer balance the books. Joe Mullen recommended retraction. The Board disagreed and chose expansion instead. Mullen resigned.

On July 12, 1961, BC Central Credit Union called the Association’s overdraft, and the plant closed. Milk producers lost thousands of dollars they never recovered.

What happened next

Dutch Dairies of Kamloops bought the buildings and continued making Armstrong Cheese, registering the trade name “Armstrong Cheese” in every province in Canada. The business was later sold to Dairyland. In 1997 it passed to Dairyworld Foods. In 2003, Saputo Inc. acquired Dairyworld. The Armstrong plant closed for good in 2004 and production moved to Ontario. The old plant on the edge of town is now a warehouse.

The Armstrong Cheese brand still appears in grocery stores across Canada. It is no longer made in Armstrong.

The tradition continues

Spallumcheen Township remains working dairy country. The valley still produces milk. Local cheese is still made in Armstrong, just not at the old plant.

Village Cheese, an independent local company, started making artisan cheeses in Armstrong in 1998. It is not affiliated with the historical Armstrong Cheese Co-operative or with Saputo’s Armstrong Cheese brand, though some employees worked at both. In 2025, Village Cheese was purchased by the Stobbe family, dairy farmers who started farming in Abbotsford in 1953. The Stobbes renamed it Village Dairy + Table.

The Big Cheese Festival, held every year in Armstrong, honors this whole history. It is a community festival that celebrates Armstrong’s dairy roots, the cheesemakers working today, and a hundred years of cheese being central to what this place is. The Big Cheese Festival is a town event (not a corporate or company-run event).

Cheese in the wider valley

Armstrong is part of a living regional dairy culture. Other cheesemakers in the Okanagan and Shuswap include:

Triple Island Farms in Cherryville. One of the few raw-milk Gouda producers in British Columbia. Makes grass-fed, non-pasteurized Gouda, Edam, and Maasdammer.

Grass Root Dairies in Salmon Arm. Originally Gort’s Gouda Cheese Farm, founded by the Gort family in 1983 and now run by the Wikkerinks. Grass-fed Gouda, Quark, Maasdammer, yogurt, and non-homogenized milk in glass bottles.

Happy Days Dairy in Salmon Arm. A goat dairy producing fresh chèvre, feta, and aged goat cheeses, available across Western Canada.

Castle Cheese in Lumby. Founded in 1981, makes the Okanagan’s Choice Cheese, Country Farms, and Garden Choice vegan lines.

Upper Bench Winery and Creamery on the Naramata Bench near Penticton. A winery and creamery that handcrafts artisan cheese alongside their wines.

The cheese tradition that started here in 1902 is still alive across the valley.