Your Place
for Good Taste!
| Phone: | 618.281.6300 |
| Fax: | 618.281.7911 |
Farm Fresh Dairy in Chester, IL bottles and distributes milk to Market Place. When you see the "Farm Fresh" or "Market Place" label on your milk you can trust that your milk will be of the best quality. We're proud to partner with Farm Fresh, because it's a business that cares about their employees and their product.
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Farm Fresh Dairy began in 1932 with the Kraft family. They opened the dairy in the small town of Chester and began bottling (in the classic glass bottles carried today). Rayburn Kraft ran the family business for a number of years, and ran it well. He studied dairy science and business at SIUC. As Greg, a long-term employee said, "He cared about the company, customers, and employees-- it was never about making the last dollar." Rayburn managed the dairy until he was advanced in years, and then it was passed on to one of their own.
In 2007, Jason Ohlau purchased Farm Fresh at just 28 years old. He had worked at the dairy as a teen and as a college student, managed other Farm Fresh stores. Mr. Kraft could have easily sold the dairy to a big company, but he knew Jason would run Farm Fresh as he would have, and protect the 250+ employees that worked at the dairy and various Farm Fresh stores.
"It's neat because, it's the American Dream. Jason wasn't born with a silver spoon... he's just a regular guy. He's doing a lot of good things, and he is going to keep building this company up," Greg says.
Today, Farm Fresh dairy, a small, hometown business supplies 16 company owned stores and several other franchises. "It's not a great big place. It's a small company. The values here are what make it the best!"
Farm Fresh milk is bottled in
| Individual serving bottles |
skim milk |
| pints | 1% milk fat |
| 1/2 gallons | 2% milk fat |
| whole gallons | whole milk |
| glass 1/2 gallons | chocolate |
Farm Fresh milk starts with milk hauled from local dairy farms in Southern Illinois and Missouri. These farmers sign documents, promising not to use the rGBH hormone, and they are paid a premium for their milk. It has to be Class 1 milk, because it goes into Grade A products.
From there, the milk is tested for antibiotics. Any found antibiotics result in the milk being discarded.
The milk is then pasteurized and homogenized. Pasteurization kills any bacteria that may be in the milk. The FDA requires a certain temperature for milk to be pasteurized at, and Farm Fresh goes above that temperature. Homogenized milk just means that the milk has been put under pressure, and the cream has been displaced, so it doesn't rise.
Farm Fresh also uses a vacuum chamber, which not many dairies do. This vacuum takes the extra flavor out of milk. Cows may graze in pastures that have onion or other herbs, and this flavor can carry into the milk. Farm Fresh believes the vacuum makes milk better tasting, and more consistent.
Farm Fresh then bottles the milk at the dairy, and sends it out to their stores. Your milk has a lot of hands-on processing, from the farmers milking to the hauler carrying, to the dairy bottling, to the distributer bringing it, to the store shelving it-- and Farm Fresh does a fantastic job!