Moo!

Here are a few things I've learned about locally available milk:

• My officemate tipped me off to Crescent Ridge Dairy, which buys milk from Vermont farmers and delivers it. To your house. (How decadent! How sensible!) I'm still struggling with the price, though. Butter (brand name, available at Stop n Shop) is $6 a pound, the milk is $6 a gallon, and there's a delivery fee on top of that. Mama raised me to be thrifty.
• Garelick Farms (one of the big brand names) gets its milk from New England and New York dairy farms.
• Stop n Shop brand milk (what we've been drinking) is also from Garelick. (Funny what you learn in the Agricultural and Resource Economics Review) So, we've been drinking relatively local milk. This actually makes sense, as shipping fluid milk is more expensive (vs. product price) than shipping cream, butter, cheese, etc.
• I'm also trying to find out whether the Garelick milk comes from cows that are locked in a barn vs. pastured. No luck yet.
• There used to be a dairy right here in Bedford, the Blue Ribbon Dairy. Now there's a brand-new plaza with Quiznos, Starbucks, a bank, etc. on the same spot. The dairy was long gone (they tore down some derelict houses and a gas station to build the Blue Ribbon Plaza), but a shame just the same...
• Also been tipped off to http://realmilk.com and their milk list. I'm not actually that interested in raw milk at this point (baby steps...)

Now, I think we may have a winner: Shaw Farm in Dracut, MA. They were linked off the Verrill Farm website, and there are several other dairies not listed in the LocalFoods and FoodRoutes databases. So if you're looking for something in your area, it might be easier to find by networking locally!

My favorite part of the Shaw Farm website is their motto: "If they say it's homemade, ask to see their cows!"

It doesn't hurt that their prices are somewhat lower than others, and that cream is available (I can make our butter). But I'm really won over by their attitude. Go check out the site, and if you live near enough, the dairy!

Comments

[Holly]

Have always been a fan of supporting local when ever possible.
But I am too educated to go the raw milk route. Unfortunately, even with good vet care, the heard might not be disease free. And that is why we have pasteurization.

[Linda]

Garelick milk comes from all sorts of farms--confinement and pastured. If you are interested in pastured milk, I would purchase Stonyfield, Organic Valley or Horizon--all have recently required that their farmers pasture cows for the growing season. There was a lot about Horizon being a large confinement dairy a few years ago but they have changed their approach. Here in the NE almost all Horizon milk comes from local farms, same for Organic Valley--not entirely sure about Stonyfield.