Agribusiness, Food Processing & Technology Industry transcript

one of the greatest strengths here in Fondulac county is the rich Heritage in farming we have rotary milking parlors which are fascinating uh cows absolutely love to ride a mil a rotary milking parlor it's like a carousel when you were a kid and uh it's fun to watch the cows but the cows we we focus so much on low stress environment for our cows uh that we want them to be comfortable at all times and in turn a cow will give us her maximum milk production and her best quality milk by that our product cannot compete or keep its high quality without really high quality milk this region of Wisconsin is very well known for um the the high percentage of farms that are here and the high percentage of high quality Farms meaning high quality milk uh most people call us the ice cream shop in the middle of nowhere Kelly country cream is a family-owned business it was a business that was not started overnight work have a dairy farm we milk 65 holen cows and we run over 200 Acres what uh we wanted to do is to use a to get a value added product from the product that we already produced which is um milk ice cream has always been a family treat so it's something that I wanted to bring back again um the oldfashioned um handmade hand dipped ice cream and it was something that you don't see as much out in the public anymore but if you're going to be the producer of the milk I wanted to make something as wholesome as I could but it did take us four years from the idea initial idea till the actual opening on May 13th of 2010 when we opened our business in may we started out with about 30 to 35 flavors and at present we are making over 100 flavors Baker cheese is a fourth generation owned and operated um cheese manufacturing facility still manufacturing and packaging cheese at the same location my great-grandfather Frank uh started Us in in 1916 our entire facility now is is solely 100% dedicated to the manufacturing and packaging of string cheese we have a very very strong brand our Baker brand of string cheese which is very very popular in Wisconsin it's the bestselling string cheese in Wisconsin but we've made a business decision over the last 20 years that really our growth will be in being the manufacturing and packaging for other compan ianes with their brands we bring all the milk in here with our local farms um we manufacture the cheese extruded into string cheese brine it and package it all at our operation here wrap it put it on a pallet and the next person that sees the the product is the stock boy putting on a Shelf at you know grocery store X in Texas we are owned by three individuals uh John bosters Todd Willer and myself and we are three Wisconsin farm boys and uh we all went out to college for agriculture we were at Madison at the same time there we barely knew each other we just recently built rosenell Dairy which is uh the uh one of the largest farms in the state and it is we we picked this area because it is known Statewide for having outstanding crop Farmers the number one question I get on a farm of our size is what are you going to do with all that manure um and the answer is really it's amazing uh we don't have enough manure we have implemented a manure processing facility much like sewage treatment where we take the nutrients and break it into its pieces and we can uh distribute that to the local farmers they in turn grow a crop instead of shipping that crop to far away markets they get to ship it just up the road the biggest strength is the quality of suppliers the quality of local farmers uh you know there are so many mid to U large siiz farms in this area that are committed to uh excellence in their operations so many of them are highly committed to protecting the environment and to be associated with a supply chain of local suppliers local farmers that are strong economically and environmentally sound uh is really important to our business and I think that's one of the greatest strengths of this area it's a family oriented business and I think that is something that I really want to hang on to I want it to be that destination that special place that people can go to just sit down relax and enjoy their their family without the TV or the radio and just enjoy each other's company