Cabot® Creamery Cooperative Releases National Survey Showing a Growing Interest in Family Volunteering

CABOT, Vt., July 17, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Cabot Creamery Cooperative, widely known as the "Makers of the World's Best Cheddar," announced the results of a national survey exploring the importance of volunteering as families build and enrich a family legacy. With the company's recent launch of the Cabot Farmers' Legacy Collection, which honors the century-long heritage of Cabot's 1,200 farm families throughout New England and upstate New York—the survey provides insights into volunteering and family reunions, which are events that help bond families. Cabot encourages families to celebrate their legacy by participating in activities together, reuniting to share favorite memories while creating new ones, and getting together in the kitchen to pass family recipes from one generation to the next.

"As we celebrate the launch of our new Farmers' Legacy Collection, we encourage people to volunteer and give back as they honor their families' legacies, as we hope to do with this new line of premium aged cheddars," said Dr. Richard Stammer, president and CEO of Cabot Creamery. "At Cabot, we are passionate about building and strengthening local communities, and we know this is a value our farm families share with many others across the country."

The national survey of 1,000 respondents indicates the company is not alone in its desire to extend families' legacies through giving back. Seventy-five percent of the respondents agree it is important to pass on shared family values to younger generations, according to the survey by Sentient Decision Science for Cabot. Both community service (43 percent) and volunteering (40 percent) ranked among the most important values parents want to share with their children.  Three-in-ten respondents (30 percent) are leading by example, reporting they participated in a volunteer activity in the past 12 months. Moreover, nearly half of the respondents (44 percent) said they regularly attend family reunions, and nearly one-quarter (23 percent) of the respondents would consider incorporating a volunteering activity into their next family reunion.

"We're seeing a growing interest among families in not only getting together more to celebrate their families, but to look back at where they came from and create a compelling future through volunteering," said Edith Wagner, editor of Reunions magazine.

To thank volunteers and community service-based organizations, Cabot is conducting a nationwide tour with its Farmers' Gratitude Grille. Kicking off this July (National Family Reunion Month) and continuing through the end of the year, the Gratitude Grille will serve items made with the Farmers' Legacy Collection at select volunteer events. Cabot has also worked with Reunions magazine and Ancestry.com, both strongly rooted in the importance of family values and outings, to raise awareness of the Gratitude Grille events and to encourage attendees to further explore and cement their family legacies. Families participating in volunteer events activities are encouraged to use the Reward Volunteers app, available in the iTunes App Store, to log volunteer hours and share on Facebook for chances to win cash and other prizes each month until March 15, 2015.

"Every day, we work with people around the world who are interested in learning more about their family history, both past and present," said Michelle Ercanbrack, a family historian from Ancestry.com, which will provide free memberships to their site at the Gratitude Grille events. "Helping people strengthen their family and community bonds is our passion, and we are excited to share that passion with Cabot."

To further link families to their own heritage, Cabot is launching the Farmers' Legacy Recipe Contest online at Cabotcheese.coop/legacyrecipe, where consumers are invited to submit a family heirloom recipe. Recipe submissions must incorporate one of the Farmers' Legacy Collection varieties into a favorite family recipe. Prizes include $10,000 ($5,000 for the grand prize winner and $5,000 for his/her charity of choice), trips to Vermont, Cabot Farmers' Legacy Collection gift boxes and much more.

Available in three distinct varieties—Farmhouse Reserve, White Oak Cheddar and Alpine Cheddar—the premium aged cheddars of the Farmers' Legacy Collection are defined by their unique flavors and natural aging process. The Cabot Farmers' Legacy Collection is currently available in the dairy section of select grocery stores nationwide. The collection is the latest addition to Cabot's world-class line of cheddars that include Classic Cheddars, Specialty Aged Cheddars, Light Cheddars and Flavored Cheddars. The Farmers' Legacy Collection includes:

• Cabot Farmhouse Reserve: A sharp cheddar cheese that offers a bold and creamy taste. Lush flavor in a mellow, well-defined, slightly crumbly body. Balanced flawlessly, this artisanal-grade cheddar whispers with subtleties that are evocative of our farmers' valley fields. As in the best cheddars, classic sharp notes linger appealingly.
• Cabot White Oak Cheddar: A distinct cheddar cheese inspired by Cabot's award-winning clothbound cheddar without the cave aging process, offering oaky and buttery undertones. Featuring subtle caramel sweetness with delicate hints of the duskiness of wine-aging casks, this cheddar is traditional only in likeness to the best of British cheddars, honoring balance, sharpness and a smooth milky texture.
• Cabot Alpine Cheddar: A unique cheese that offers the strong, sharp cheddar taste and texture with hints of Swiss and Parmesan. At room temperature, this cheese will surprise and delight even the most jaded cheese aficionados with its unique flavor—at once familiar and completely unique.

For more information about the Farmers' Legacy Collection, please visit www.cabotcheese.coop.

The Cabot Volunteering and Family Values Survey Methodology

The Sentient Decision Science Family Legacy study examines volunteering perceptions and behaviors, and family values among U.S. consumers. Sentient Decision Science, an independent behavioral science and consulting firm, was commissioned by Cabot Creamery to conduct this study. The research is based on an online survey of 1,000 U.S. households, randomly selected from a national panel. Conducted June 26-29, 2014, participants were split equally across gender (half men and half women), ages 18 and older, and the data is representative of the U.S. census population. The margin of error for a survey based on 1,000 interviews is +/- 3.1 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence. For more information about the sampling methodology of this study, please contact Leigh Reynolds at Sentient Decision Science.

About Cabot Creamery Cooperative

Cabot Creamery Cooperative has been in continuous operation in Vermont since 1919, and makes a full line of cheeses, yogurt, sour cream, cottage cheese and butter. Widely known as makers of "The World's Best Cheddar," Cabot is owned by the 1200 dairy farm families of Agri-Mark, the Northeast's premier dairy cooperative, with farms located throughout New England and upstate New York. For more information on Cabot, visit: http://www.cabotcheese.coop.

About Reunions Magazine

Reunions magazine assists individuals in planning reunions by providing various ideas for communication, activities and outings. It covers topics that help plan family, class, military and other reunions. For more information, please visit www.reunionsmag.com.

About Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com is the world's largest online family history resource with approximately 2.7 million paying subscribers across all its websites. More than 14 billion records have been added to the Ancestry.com sites and users have created more than 60 million family trees containing more than 6 billion profiles. In addition to its flagship site www.ancestry.com, the company operates several global Ancestry international websites along with a suite of online family history brands, including Archives.com, Fold3.com, Newspapers.com, and offers the AncestryDNA product, sold by its subsidiary, Ancestry.com DNA, LLC, all of which are designed to empower people to discover, preserve and share their family history.

Contact:
Melissa Dorman
Havas PR on behalf of Cabot Creamery Cooperative
[email protected]
917.251.2415

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SOURCE Cabot Creamery Cooperative