Old dairy

At a time when the villagers still lived far apart from each other, the milk was probably processed individually. With the increasing settlement of the village center around the church and the Johanniterkomturei, the town house and a first dairy were built in 1562, where milk was probably processed into cheese together for the first time.

As the population and livestock numbers increased, the space was no longer sufficient, which led to the construction of a new dairy in the 1920s. The dairy cooperative, founded in 1928, already had 136 members in 1944. The farmers brought their milk to the dairy every day, especially in winter, where it was processed into cheese, Ziger and butter by an employed dairyman. Those who did not keep a "Summerchüeli" or a goat at home during the summer had the opportunity to buy milk for their daily needs from the dairy in the evening. Throughout the year, a line of people waiting to buy milk would form at the dairy, filling the time with a pleasant village chat. Social media in the old days.

When cow farming in Salgesch declined sharply from the 1960s onwards and food technology brought pasteurized milk onto the market, milk sales were discontinued in the summer. The last ordinary general meeting of the cooperative took place in 1969. However, the dairy business was maintained on a reduced scale until 1980. 

Sale of the dairy

At the liquidation meeting on October 26, 2000, the members of the cooperative who were present decided to dissolve the cooperative and to donate the liquidation proceeds to the "Wohnen im Alter" foundation that was to be set up. In May 2001, the municipality of Salgesch acquired the dairy building for CHF 70,000.