Hudson Valley Fresh is on a mission: to make milk cool again, one school, grocery store and household at a time.
That, and to make sure dairy farming is around for the long haul in the Hudson Valley. And so far it”™s off to a good start.
When Hudson Valley Fresh was founded in 2005 as a not-for-profit cooperative aimed at guaranteeing local dairy farmers fair prices for their premium-quality milk, it sold a grand total of $37 worth of milk in its first month.
Today, the cooperative is composed of eight farms that produce 1.5 million pounds of milk per month, making Hudson Valley Fresh a multimillion-dollar enterprise.
To be sure, just as the farms under the Hudson Valley Fresh banner have done well, the dairy industry has become an endangered species where it once thrived. Today there are barely two dozen dairy farms in the Hudson Valley compared with the 1970s when there were about 300, according to Hudson Valley Fresh President Sam Simon.
That decline is largely due to the rising cost of producing milk and the cost of maintaining a dairy farm, particularly for single-family farms that lack the resources of the commercial dairy producers.
Enter Hudson Valley Fresh, which allows the participating farms to share in transportation, bottling and other administrative costs while marketing and selling their milk under the Hudson Valley Fresh label.
“Our mission is to give back to the farmers as much as possible because they”™re the ones who need the cash to survive,” said Simon, who also owns Plankenhorn Farm in Pleasant Valley. “Farmers who produce quality milk should get paid for it.”
Humble beginnings
Simon, who was born and raised on a dairy farm before going to medical school, bought the 150-acre Plankenhorn Farm in 1995 and said he immediately saw the struggles that local dairy farmers were facing.
“I could see the decimation of the dairy farms in this area,” he said. At the time it could cost $1.70 to produce a gallon of milk and the farmers were getting paid just $1.40 by the larger bottling companies, which “wasn”™t sustainable.”
Through Hudson Valley Fresh, which has its offices in Poughkeepsie, all of the participating farms are paid for the cost of producing their milk, even if the market price ”“ which is determined daily by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange ”“ drops unexpectedly.
“For everything that was sold under the Hudson Valley Fresh label, they”™re getting the difference between” the cost of production and the market price, Simon said. “It means they”™re getting a sustainable wage.”
Milk from all eight of the co-op”™s farms is bottled at Boice Brother”™s Dairy in Kingston, where each carton and package is marked with the Hudson Valley Fresh label and then shipped off to a number of area retailers and businesses. Any profits are divided among the eight farms in the co-op.
Despite the best efforts of those involved with Hudson Valley Fresh, the dairy farming business is such that family farms are constantly looking up at larger commercial dairy companies such as Garelick Farms and HP Hood L.L.C., Simon said.
Thus, marketing is one of the co-op”™s biggest challenges. Unable to outspend the major brands, Simon said the farmers of Hudson Valley Fresh will often go directly to stores, schools, and other public areas to do milk tastings, in addition to offering tours of each of their farms to interested consumers.
“We won”™t buy shelf space ”“ we can”™t afford to buy shelf space,” Simon said. Despite that, he said the response has been good and is continuing to grow. “It”™s growing, but we have not saturated our local area yet. A lot of it is public awareness.”
Currently, about 40 percent of the milk produced by the Hudson Valley Fresh farms is sold locally, with the rest going to niche food markets in New York City and to stores in northern New Jersey and western Connecticut.
Quality counts
One big advantage the Hudson Valley Fresh farms have over commercial operations is their ability to focus on quality, Simon said.
While the farms may not technically be considered “organic,” they all produce premium-quality milk, meaning that unlike three-quarters of U.S. dairy farms, Hudson Valley Fresh farms”™ milk has among the highest white count and lowest bacteria count levels when compared with the average for dairy producers.
Each of the eight farmers in the co-op grows roughly 90 percent of their cows”™ feed on their own farms, in addition to being able to devote much more attention ”“ medical and otherwise ”“ to their cows than a commercial dairy farm would. Simon said that the average productive life span of a cow at a Hudson Valley Fresh farm was eight years, versus an average of just three and a half years for all U.S. dairy farms.
All of that has meant a positive reception for the brand.
“What gives me the greatest joy is we have a lot of prep schools and colleges that say ”˜We”™ve never seen kids drink so much milk in their lives.”™ Some parents say we”™ve created milk elitists,” Simon said.
