Do you love cold, fresh milk? If so, you have reason to envy middle and high school students in the Hutchinson, Litchfield and Dassel-Cokato school districts.
Instead of grabbing the usual carton of milk, students in the meal line starting Feb. 1 had the option to pick up a glass and fill it with milk from new bulk dispensers full of milk from Stony Creek Dairy of Melrose. The farm has been in the Schoenberg family for seven generations.
“They pasteurize their milk right on site,” said Leslie Mueller, child nutrition director for the three school districts. “They have a creamery. It’s very local and they’ve been great to work with.”
Nathan Terres with Stone Creek Dairy said the operation began bottling milk in its own facility in 2008. It milks around 500 cows and bottles about 3,500 gallons daily. Surplus milk is sent to First District Association in Litchfield.
Mueller described the cold milk dispensers as providing a better, creamier taste than milk packaged in cartons.
“After sitting in those (cartons) a time, it can kind of bring on the taste of the carton,” Mueller said.
But the schools didn’t make the switch just to give a tastier lunch. Milk cartons account for 50% of lunchroom trash by volume, and it is estimated that 30% of milk in cartons is wasted, according to a notice from the schools. Some are never even opened before they are tossed out. Bulk dispensers cut down on that waste when students only take what they plan to drink and are more energy efficient than carton coolers. Reusable glasses are also considered more sanitary.
“Zero waste milk is a piece of our Farm to School program,” reads the notice. “We’re buying milk from a family-run, Minnesota dairy farm.”
Money to fund the new offering came from grants and donations. The Minnesota Department of Education provided grants of $4,500 each to Hutchinson, Litchfield and Dassel-Cokato, which allowed each district to purchase three machines. Additional donations from Midwest Dairy have given Hutchinson and Dassel-Cokato the ability to purchase more. Volunteers from Midwest Dairy will also be on hand for the first week to help familiarize students with the machines.
For now, the program is offered at middle and high schools, but it could spread to other grade levels. Mueller had originally considered using bulk milk dispensers after visiting Waconia, and seeing the schools use the devices.
“I thought about it. I had it in the back of my head for something down the line,” Mueller said.
She was reminded of Waconia’s dispensers again this past year and started to take the idea more seriously. That’s when she received an email about the grants, and she learned about Stony Creek Dairy.
“They’re very local and they’ve been great to work with,” Mueller said. “We’ll work with them the rest of the year and hope for years moving forward, too.”
Terres, who was on-hand in Hutchinson on Feb. 1, said supply chain issues due to COVID made it challenging to get together everything needed to work with the schools, but the dairy hopes it can work with more schools in the future, and continue to work with Hutchinson, Litchfield and Dassel-Cokato in the future. When he visited the districts to help with preparations, he found staff had a lot of excitement for the change.
“When opportunities like this one come to us, it’s something we get excited about,” Terres said. “It’s our chance to get our product to young people and show what we do.”
