Couple Find Niche Market For Dairy Products
Some agriculture officials are calling the Shoals’ newest dairy farm the wave of the future but its owners call it a throwback to an earlier day when dairies were small family operations.
Eric Cornelius and his wife, PJ, opened Honest to Goodness dairy and milk processing plant earlier this month, touting the milk as cream of the crop. Because the milk is not homogenized, the cream separates and rises to the top. Shaking the milk jug mixes the cream with the milk.
“Our milk is all natural,” Eric Cornelius said. “We don’t do anything to alter our milk. We don’t add anything to it, we don’t take anything out. Our milk is as close to what comes out of the cow as you can get.”
Alabama law requires milk to be pasteurized to kill bacteria, but the Rogersville dairy uses a pasteurizing method different from that used by large-scale dairies.
“We use a low-temperature pasteurization process,” Cornelius said. “It takes 30 minutes to pasteurize our milk. The big dairies pasteurize their milk in a matter of seconds, using very high temperatures. The process we use retains the natural enzymes in the milk that aid digestion.”
“They have hit on a niche market, selling milk straight to consumers,” Robinson said. “They have a good chance of doing well because consumers like knowing where their food comes from. The cream-like milk like they are producing is becoming very popular.
Photo by SCapture.
Jaclyn Wells on August 28th, 2009 1:23 pm
That sounds like a great idea, it really does. But i just wonder how many people will be deterred from buying this milk as is when they see that it seperates. I just know so many people who are picky when it comes to milk and dates on it, that i wonder how picky they will be at the fact they have to shake it until it mixes well enough to drink and taste good.
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