Keesia Wirt on Francis Thicke / High Plains Journal / October 15, 2003
FAIRFIELD, Iowa (DTN) -- There's a small Jersey dairy tucked among the hills in southeast Iowa that processes and bottles its own organic milk, cheese, yogurt and cream.
With just 65 cows and 236 acres of pasture, Radiance Dairy has become a success story for small, on-farm milk processors. The owners, Francis and Susan Thicke, sell their organic dairy products to a devoted group of customers in nearby Fairfield, Iowa. Radiance Dairy products are found in three local grocery stores, six restaurants and a university.
On September 19, the Thickes invited 25 people, including DTN, to spend a day at their dairy farm to learn about organic dairy production and on-farm processing. The field day was sponsored by the Practical Farmers of Iowa.
Participants spent the morning helping Francis make a batch of organic Monterey jack cheese. In this week's Sustainable Ag story, you'll learn about the cheese-making process, as well as other information about on-farm dairy processing. Bright and early every morning at 6:00, Francis milks 60 to 65 Jersey cows in a New Zealand style milk parlor. It takes about a minute to milk each cow, he says, if he has help from one of the dairy's two part-time employees.
The dairy produces about 550 gallons of milk a day. Milk is pasteurized and bottled on Mondays and Thursdays. Those are also the days it is delivered to grocery stores, several restaurants and the university.
Radiance Dairy organic milk fetches a good premium -- a gallon of whole milk sells for $4 or more, significantly higher than the average price of milk at the grocery store. Francis said he typically sells milk for about $48 a hundredweight.
The Thickes need their organic premium to help cover costs for their on-farm bottling and processing facility. A reconditioned bottler (the machine that fills the plastic gallon and half-gallon jugs with milk and seals them) costs around $35,000. Francis said he was lucky and found a used one for only $6,000. The track on which the bottles slide from the bottler into milk crates cost $1,000 and the labeling machine cost $700.
And that's just the bottling costs. Two years ago the Thickes bought a 15 h.p. boiler used to make steam for pasteurizing. It cost $16,000. The plate cooler used to cool the milk before it is bottled cost $1,500. The Thickes would like to buy a cup filler for bottling their yogurt, but at a cost of $30,000 it just isn't feasible now, Francis said. The next big investment for Radiance Dairy will likely be an addition on their current facility to hold a bottle washer and sterilizer. Francis would like to switch the operation from plastic jugs to glass milk bottles.
Plastic milk jugs, which cost 18 to 20 cents each, are quite a bit cheaper than glass bottles, which cost $1 a piece. There's also the added cost of buying a bottle washer and sterilizer, not to mention building a new room that would hold them.
On the other hand, customers would be charged a 50-cent deposit for each bottle, which would significantly reduce costs for bottles that are broken or lost. Plus, there would be no need to buy labels for milk bottles, which can have them engraved into the glass.
"We're considering doing glass bottles because we know our customers would like them," he said. "Glass is more health- and environmentally conscience. It's reusable and there's less leaking with glass."
If the dairy moves to glass bottles, Francis said he would start a home delivery milk route. A route would ensure that the milk bottles are returned to the dairy in a timely fashion and it would be another specialized service he could offer his customers. There are a lot of people interested in home delivery, he said, especially in big cities. Whether it would work in a rural area like Fairfield is another question.
However, the Thickes live in a unique community that might be just the place to try out the idea. Fairfield is home of the Maharishi University of Management. The university attracts people from all over the world, many of who will pay more for organic, farm fresh foods.
At this time, Francis and Susan sell the following organic products under the Radiance Dairy label -- whole milk, two percent milk, skim milk, creamline yogurt, maple no-fat yogurt, no-fat plain yogurt, vanilla and chocolate soft serve ice cream mixes, ricotta cheese, Radiance jack cheese, panir and whipping cream.
Panir is a soft, very mild cheese that is often used in cooking. It is popular with many of Fairfield's Middle Eastern residents, and can be found on the menus of several local restaurants. Francis and Susan make yogurt and panir every Thursday.
On every other Friday, Susan makes a special batch of Radiance Jack cheese (Monterey Jack). Field day participants helped Francis and Susan make a batch. Cheese making is a seven-step process at Radiance Dairy.
First, the organic whole milk (Jersey milk has a butterfat of 5 percent) is pasteurized at 145 degrees for about half an hour. It is then poured into a 200-gallon vat where it will eventually become cheese.
The second step is adding the culture. Culture is an acidic starter that helps the milk ferment and gives cheese its flavor. Next, the coagulant, or rennet, is added to the milk so it can begin to set up, almost like gelatin.
After the milk has set up, it is cut into cubes or curds using a large stainless steel tool that resembles the grill on a barbecue. This lets water drain from the cheese curds and helps them become firmer.
Next the curds are slowly heated in the vat, which further draws out more liquid. Once the curds have set up, they are drained from the remaining liquid (whey), washed with clean water and then drained again. Finally, the curds are salted and packed into hoops where they are compressed together to form cheese.
Sounds easy enough, right? Well, by the end of the three-hour process, most of the tour participants understood why the Thickes only make cheese every other Friday. Cheese making requires a lot of time, muscle and patience. Thermometers that gauge the temperature of the milk or curds most be constantly monitored to prevent the curds from becoming too hot, which would scorch their edges and make them rubbery.
Then there's the record keeping -- writing down temperatures, times, ingredients, etc. for USDA inspectors who visit the Thicke's dairy every three months.
And don't forget about clean up. Every single piece of equipment must be thoroughly scrubbed, cleaned and sterilized after each use. It all adds up to a lot of work, but the Thickes say it's worth it.
"It's hard, no doubt about that," Francis said. "But we get a nice premium for our products and so far we're making it work."
Francis estimates it would cost about $100,000 to start a small on-farm processing plant for dairy products. That doesn't include the price of raising dairy cows. However, he believes now is a great time for specialty products.
"The more industrialized agriculture is, with big farms and fewer farmers, the more niches that are created," he said. "I think this is the time to get into specialty products. Aged cheese would be a good market in the Midwest. Not many people are doing it, but there's a real demand from consumers.
"But my advice for any niche product would be not to spend a lot of money until you're sure you have a market for it."
Coming Soon
Next week's Sustainable Ag story will be about choosing the right breed and type of cow for your farm or ranch. Colorado cattle rancher Kit Pharo recently spoke to a group of Midwest farmers about a somewhat controversial subject -- redefining cow size. Pharo believes the only way to make ranching profitable is to raise smaller-sized cows that require less feed, nutrients and medicine than today's larger-sized cattle. In the weeks to come, DTN will bring you stories about raising livestock without antibiotics, farm ownership issues, the world food prize and the latest trends in organic agriculture.
To contact Keesia Wirt, please email her at keesia.wirt@dtn.com.
