The Milk Behind the Label
Vermont is a dairy state. Out of almost 7,000 farms in Vermont, there are just under a thousand dairies (987 at last count according to the Vermont Agency of Agriculture).
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City Market's General Manager, Clem Nilan, with one of Butterworks Farm's jersey cows
Only a few farms – Strafford and Monument Farms most notably at City Market – continue to bottle their own milk.
Monument Farms Dairy in Weybridge - their family farm bottles our Vermont Co-op Milk
Most of the other farms sell their milk to dairy co-op so a milk truck comes to pick up the milk every day and combine it with milk from other farms. Ultimately most of this milk is pooled with milk from other farms from all around New England and New York and bottled at facilities throughout the region.
Taconic End Farm in Leicester Vermont is part of the Organic Valley dairy cooperative
That means Vermont’s milk ends up back on our shelves in disguise – unless you’re in-the-know, it can be hard to tell which products contain Vermont milk. If you’re looking to support Vermont’s dairy farms, it’s helpful to know where this milk ends up.
Organic Valley
Organic Valley is a cooperative owned by family farmers. While their headquarters are in Wisconsin, Organic Valley has 130 dairy farms in Vermont. Their milk is pooled with the milk of other family farms from Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Maryland and Pennsylvania. On our shelves, we see their bottled milk, butter, cottage cheese, cheese, and string cheese.
Stonyfield Yogurt
Stonyfield Yogurt buys all their milk from Organic Valley, meaning that the yogurt (which they make in New Hampshire) contains milk from the 130 Vermont organic dairy farms that are part of the Organic Valley cooperative.
Liberté
Most people know that Liberté's fabulous yogurt is from Quebec. What many do not realize is that all the milk they use to make their yogurt is from Vermont. Liberté sources their milk from the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery which buys milk from 460 Vermont dairy farms.
Cabot
Cabot is famously connected with Vermont. The co-operative uses milk from the Agrimark cooperative which sources milk from around 450 Vermont dairy farms and pools it with milk from other Northeast states. Cabot's cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream, Greek yogurt, and dips are all made at their facility in Cabot, VT. Their other products are made at out-of-state facilities.
These dairy products are obviously different from other local food we sell - we may not know these farmers names or where exactly their farms are located. But they're an important part of our Vermont economy and keep much of our land in working farms. Now how about some milk and cookies?