Snowville Creamery Farm Tour

Snowville Creamery might be known best as one of the original cream suppliers for Jeni's Splendid ice creams.  As it gained popularity in the Ohio dairy market for its grassfed cow goodness, most grocery stores started carrying many of their products including Whole Foods, Giant Eagle and Kroger.  Snowville distributes milk and cream, obviously, as well as yogurt and creme fraiche... and I get all of mine delivered to my door through GreenBEAN.

Every year, Snowville opens their farm to their customers for a little free food, fun, and farm tour!  Not far from Athens, the rolling hills are quite scenic as you approach the main farm.  While the land may seem to go on forever, there are surprisingly very few structures that collect, process, and carton the milk we enjoy every week.  The milking barn, pictured below, has room for only 18 cows to be milked at a time while the cows enjoy a little grain snack in the trough.  The farmers are the ones down in the pit you see in the middle making sure everything is sanitary and the milk is flowing.  The cows get milked twice a day and then ushered to a new pasture where they roam freely and munch on grass.

   

We tried some yogurt flavors I've been too nervous to get full cartons of like coffee-cardamom and gingamon.  I'm still not sure what cardamom tastes like, but I really like coffee yogurts and ice creams, so I'll be getting the coffee yogurt again.  The gingamon tastes a lot more like a greek yogurt with with a slight tang.  Snowvillians were also handing out ice cream... churned using a bicycle!  

We met some cute calves and their mamas... and this old Australian Shepard with beautiful blue eyes (even though she closed them went I went to take a picture after a long pet).  If you enjoy daily reminders of where your milk comes from, Snowville posts daily doses of cute to their Facebook page, usually of cute calves or cows licking their noses.  :)

   

It's really quite amazing that just a few people and a lot of cows can produce enough milk to keep up with demand!  I love that Snowville's founder quit the commercialized dairy industry and wanted to give consumers a grassfed, pasture raised option rich in nutrients and connected to the community.  Here's his story which aired on PBS's Perennial Plate...