Hansen's Farm Fresh Dairy

While at one of our three Thanksgiving parties my wife's Aunt shared with her about the milk that they buy that is from a local producer. (On a side note, everyone seems to be telling us about things like this now that they know the direction we are going so it is kind of cool.) The milk comes from Hansen's Farm Fresh Dairy of Hudson, IA and the dairy has a pretty cool story behind it.

According to an article I found over on the Iowa Farmer Today website they have a 150 head dairy herd that supports five families ... yep, you read that correctly ... FIVE FAMILIES! The dairy farm has been in the family for a while, but as each child graduated school they went out into different fields of work and worked hard just like the family has always done. Somewhere along the lines though some of the siblings decided they would like to get back to farming but they knew that 150 dairy cows would not support five families, so they would have to do something different ... something value-added ... something unconventional!

They family decided the needed to sell their quality milk directly to the consumers, so with the their own determination and help from the inspectors (see you can get them to work on your side from time to time) the were able to build their own creamery from the ground up. They now sell their whole and skim milk (along with other items) at area stores and a few local eateries. The command around $3.00 per gallon (not bad in todays milk market) and say that they are, "going back to the way milk is supposed to be," according to Brent Hansen.

While they are not an organic or naturally certified dairy they do not give their cows any hormones to increase milk production. Mr. Hansen says, "It is important to us the cows have the least amount of stress possible. We could push them harder — feed more grain or give growth hormone shots but there is a cost to that, and for us it's not worth it. Plus, there is much consumer concern." It sounds like they are really tackling this from right direction and making it work (I wonder if they would every consider having a grass only herd?)

A final encouraging thing about their dairy is that they are getting back to the milk is supposed to taste. They do not homogenize their milk so there is a cream line in the bottle. According to the Hansen's all it takes is a little consumer education (and I'm a sure a taste test doesn't hurt) that all you need to do is shake the bottle up a bit and you are good to go.

This is pretty exciting stuff that is happening right here in Iowa. I encourage you to check out their site linked above and the article that I mentioned. If you would like to read more about their farm you can check out the links below.

Agri News Article

Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier Article