BELLEVILLE — The province has given Maple Dale Cheese near Belleville $400,000 to upgrade its wastewater treatment system.

"We’re planning a primary treatment facility that will cost $1 million," said owner Keith Henry. The process that includes a 3.5 acre field adjacent to the plant will turn waste water from the plant into potable water.

The company processes about 10 million litres of milk per year into cheese and employs 41 people full-time.

Maple Dale became the fourth cheese factory in the last two months to receive a provincial grant for waste water management.

In 2005, provincial regulations dictated that wastewater could not be dumped on frozen ground from the end of December to the end of March, which meant that small cheese factories would have to shut down for a part of the year, leaving the companies to scramble for financial survival. The deadline was extended until 2009, when the grants were promised.

Had the plants been forced to close "It would have been an end of an era," said Henry, formerly president of Ault Foods in Winchester. As it is, the quality of cheese in supermarkets has deteriorated because of the addition of modified ingredients, and Ontario cheddar with a world-wide reputation is threatened with marginalization. He says large companies are buying protein off shore and adding about 40 per cent protein to the cheese making process.

The saving is substantial because milk represents about 85 per cent of the manufacturing cost. Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO) has cut the price of milk to cheese factories to compete, he said.

One consequence is that the nature of the cheddar changes, he said. "It becomes softer. Cheddar is a hard cheese."

He says, "Ontario is to old cheddar as Florida is to oranges."