The Future of Milk

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“How do you compete with people who sell milk for half what you sell? By making something that is fundamentally different,” says Taylor. “Our whipping cream is pumpkin-orange. Our whole milk has a yellow hue. Our skim milk isn’t watery and blue-looking—it actually looks white and it has a rich taste. The vast majority of people can taste the difference.”

For Snowville Creamery, proof has come at the checkout counter. Snowville Creamery is the best-selling milk at Whole Foods stores in Ohio, is now being sold in Washington, D.C., and can be found in some Kroger supermarkets. Snowville quadrupled sales in 2009, and is now growing at 10 percent per month. Taylor says his creamery had $1.2 million in sales in 2009, and he expects to be doing $3 million by the end of this year. Getting here wasn’t easy—Taylor nearly went bankrupt in 2008, and he insists that federal agricultural policies are squeezing out small producers—but he has survived. He says he wants to serve as a model and hopes another 100 small dairies like Snowville open up around the country.

“I think we represent real potential to change consumers’ expectations of the quality of the milk they drink,” he declares.