One of the gems of Marin County is the Straus Family Creamery. Straus was the first organic creamery on the West Coast, and the Strauses are true trailblazers in the industry. We went on a tour of the creamery last month through the Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT).
If you live in the Bay Area, you are probably aware of Straus products: The glass milk bottles with the cream top, the yogurt and butter awarded prizes by the American Cheese Society, the new ice cream products, and my favorite - egg nog in glass bottles during the holiday season.
Straus is a great example of a company that melds wonderful product and taste with ground-breaking organic and environmental practices. There are many reasons I am excited about the Straus creamery:
* They are one of only a few companies that process their products -- and only their products -- in their own creamery. They make every decision from beginning to end.
* They have a closed cow crop. The cows that they use are born and raised on their farms. They create a calm, stressfree environment for their cows. Cows are not crowded, and are allowed to roam.
* They create their own electricity with the methane waste from their cows - so much electricity that they are saving approximately $6000 a month in power charges. More importantly, they have been able to take something that can be harmful to the enviroment and turn it into a benefit. My hope is that this will be replicated many times over in other dairy farms. (Read more about the methane digester here.)
* They take their role as leaders in the industry seriously. They understand that others look to them. Mr. Straus is always answering questions from others in the dairy industry, and they provide educational tours and a great website for the public. To me, the most striking question of the tour was about the team of advisors that the Straus family had when going organic. The tour guide replied that there were not many people that they could look to for advice at the time, and that the Strauses figured most of it out themselves.
If you live on the West Coast, Straus also happens to provide cream-topped milk in plastic containers to the western region stores of an unnamed supermarket chain (two words ... second word rhymes with nose).
I'd highly recommend taking this tour if you are in the area. Check out the MALT site for adult tours. Straus also leads tours for families and children.
