Adding value from scratch

NEW AUBURN, Wis. — Creating a value-added product to keep more profit from their milk on the farm was something the Klemish family had considered for a number of years.

Randy and Dixie Klemish own the Chippewa County family farm which their son and daughter-in-law, Joe and Trista Klemish’s 54-cow herd calls home. Joe represents the fifth generation of the family to make a living milking cows on the farm.

“We’ve been talking about value-added for a long time, we just never wanted to take the leap,” Dixie Klemish said. “During the pandemic, Ellsworth asked all their farmers to decrease their production by 7%, and local food became a big thing with supply-chain disruptions. We started thinking it was time to take that leap.”

Rather than dumping the excess milk, the Klemishes began pasteurizing and using the milk for their own purposes.

“I started making ice cream during the pandemic and we began thinking in terms of flavors and recipes,” Klemish said. “It was another story to convert those flavors and recipes to commercial equipment, which spins faster and freezes harder, and you also have to meet the standard of identity for ice cream.”

Klemish began investigating the idea of on-farm processing and located information for grants from the Dairy Business Innovation Alliance. She applied for and received a grant to begin to lay the foundation for the family’s new venture.

“The process to lay the groundwork was anything but easy,” Klemish said. “The regulations are overwhelming — there are over 400 pages of code. It is complicated to understand, and difficult to find help to navigate everything.”

The Klemishes secured help from a retired state dairy inspector who helped them navigate the intricacies of the regulations. They toured several small on-farm creameries for guidance. As they have gained experience, they have been giving people tours of their creamery.

Ground was broken for the creamery building the fall of 2021. The Klemishes completed most of the interior work on the building themselves, and they received their certifications and licensure in August 2022.

“We are licensed as a commercial kitchen with the county,” Klemish said. “Our thought process was that if we didn’t sell enough ice cream right away, we could make pies, cakes and other things. It turned out we haven’t had enough time to do anything but ice cream.”

Klemish said the entire family is involved in some aspect of operating the creamery, and for most of them, it has become a second job.

The Klemishes are currently processing 600 pounds of milk produced by Joe’s cows on a weekly basis. The remainder of the milk continues to be shipped to Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery.

“Ellsworth was fine to work with us, as long as we had a Grade B license,” Klemish said. “There was a lot more regulation in securing a Grade A license, ... (and sending) milk to two different Grade A plants.”

With their Grade B processing license, the Klemishes can make ice cream, cheese and butter in their facility. For the time being, they have decided to focus their efforts on ice cream and novelty products like ice cream sandwiches and bars.

To move the milk from the barn bulk tank to the creamery, Klemish said Joe had to obtain a milk hauler’s license and the business had to procure a special waiver from the state to use stainless steel milk cans to transport the milk across the yard.

“We started out looking at in-ground and overhead piping, but when the costs began to add up beyond $12,000, we started looking at other alternatives,” Klemish said. “This is the best alternative for us at this time. The waiver was granted for our specific circumstances and is only allowed for Grade B processing.”

In the creamery, the milk is pumped from the cans to a small 60-gallon bulk tank.

What makes Klemish Creamery unique from some other small-scale ice cream processors is that Klemish makes her own mix from scratch, rather than purchasing a pre-made mix from a dairy supplier.

“We currently buy the cream we use because a cream separator is a $40,000 item,” Klemish said. “We were recently notified we received another DBIA grant and will be purchasing a cream separator with that. Then the amount of milk we process on-farm will increase about five times.”

The Klemishes have 30-gallon and 4-gallon pasteurizers they use in the production of their ice cream.

“When we make our mix, everything — the milk, cream and sugar — all goes in the pasteurizer,” Klemish said. “If we use a dairy product that we didn’t pasteurize ourselves, we have to re-pasteurize it.”

Klemish currently makes a standard mix but plans to develop a recipe for a chocolate mix to remove a step from their many chocolate-flavored ice creams.

Over 30 flavors make up the Klemishes’ book of homemade recipes. Using a 6-quart batch freezer, ice cream is frozen in small batches.

“It comes out about five quarts at a time, and we can do that every eight minutes,” said Klemish. “It’s adequate, but we’re already starting to wish maybe we had gone bigger.”

The Klemishes retail their ice cream on-farm, in a self-serve, honor-system store.

“We opened the first weekend of November 2022,” Klemish said. “At first, I thought that was bad timing, but, in hindsight, I’m glad that’s how it worked. It allowed us to start slowly.”

The ice cream is sold at several local markets, food cooperatives and restaurants. They recently procured a grant from the Menomonie Market Food Co-op which they used to purchase and outfit an enclosed food trailer, which allows them to do mobile sales at farmers markets, breweries and other events.

Klemish Creamery Ice Cream has been well-received by the community, Klemish said.

“People really appreciate coming to the farm; they thank us over and over,” Klemish said. “They really seem to enjoy sitting and eating ice cream, while watching the cows that made the milk graze.”