June is National Dairy Month and we want to give an extra special shout out to our friends at Cal Poly Dairy who supply us with weekly shipments of fresh cow's milk for cheesemaking.
(Cal Poly Dairy photos courtesy of their Facebook page with prior approval for posting)
Located on the campus at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California, Cal Poly Dairy is a student-run teaching/education dairy operation with a herd of 500 Jersey and Holstein dairy cows.
On average, they have 30-35 part-time students doing everything from milking the cows and feeding the calves to helping with equipment maintenance and pen cleaning.
The dairy produces roughly 535,000 lbs (or 62,000 gallons) of cow's milk each month - 800 gallons of which we pick up from the dairy every week.
Our team takes the beautiful drive South on Highway 1 every Monday to pick up that week's worth of cow's milk from Cal Poly Dairy. It's then pumped into a large bulk tank and stored in the creamery.
When needed for making cheese such as Paso Vino, Ragged Point, Moonstone or Fromage Blanc (Fresh, Spicy, Everything Bagel and Marinated), the milk is moved through a pipeline system into our make room. We're very thankful for our partnership with Cal Poly Dairy and so impressed with the staff and students committed to supplying local businesses such as ourselves with fresh milk. All our 100% cow's milk cheeses are available year-round online and at farmer's markets throughout California.
