Passion For Dairy Builds New Creamery Business

Passion for dairy builds new creamery business

Ethan couple has big dreams for making cheese products

Chad Blase’s family dairy farm January 4 in Ethan. Blase and Klock will use the cows on the Blase family farm when they break ground this spring and build their cheese making operation in Ethan.

Photos by: Sam Fosness / Republic

By Sam Fosness South Dakota Farm and Ranch

ETHAN — Growing up on a dairy farm, Chad Blase witnessed the day-to-day struggles of life as a dairy producer. The work was hard, the prices were low and the profit margins were tight.

But in the midst of watching those struggles, Blase’s hopes of making it as dairy farmer never died.

“For almost the entire dairy industry, it’s really come to a head in the last few years,” said Blase, who grew up on a dairy farm near Madison. “It came down to where we either quit and get out of dairy farming while there is still equity, or we add value to our product.”

But Blase and his girlfriend Laura Klock have taken the dairy business to a completely new level. They, along with Chad’s parents Gary and Amy, explored opening a creamery on the Blase family farm, when a unique opportunity arose.

Klock was introduced to Value- Added Ag Services, a program under the umbrella of the United States Department of Agriculture that aims to help farmers add more value to their operation through introducing grants and other financial solutions to improve farms. That program led to meeting the owners of Valley Side Farm Cheese, an artisan cheese business in Crooks, South Dakota.

Blase and Klock fell in love with the cheese-making process, and jumped on the opportunity to buy into the Crooks cheese operation about four months ago. It was then that their Farm Life Creamery business was born.

“We get up at 4 a.m. and do chores on the farm, and then we hit the road before sunrise,” Blase said. “Farming is hard work, and starting this business has added more hard work for us, but we do it because we love it. Farming is more than a job, it’s a way of life. A risky one at that.”

Part science, part passion

It was a about a year and a half ago when his girlfriend Laura Klock moved in with Blase on his family’s dairy farm in Ethan. Previously, his family had a dairy operation near Madison before moving to the Ethan area roughly 25 years ago. Bringing her Wisconsin roots and entrepreneurial spirit, Klock provided the spark that Blase needed to take the first step of starting a creamery using the resources in his backyard.

“We were looking for ways of making the farm more profitable and researched various options for opening a creamery,” Klock said. “Since milk prices have stayed the same and production costs keep rising with inflation, the struggles dairy farmers face right now are mounting.”

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, since 1970, the number of American dairy farms has dropped by more than 93 percent, from 640,000 to around 40,000 today. As for dairy prices, in 2018, milk prices were 30 percent below the average cost of production, according to a USDA report.

While it wasn’t the original plan to get into cheese production first, business has been booming since they began making and selling cheese curds and cheese wheels, as Klock said they sold over 200 packages of their Farm Life Creamery cheese curds on the first day they put up a sample booth at the County Fair Food Store in Mitchell.

Making the dairy products is far from an easy process. The couple currently rents the cheese making equipment from Valley Side Farm, while Klock and Blase make the 70-mile one-way drive to Crooks twice a week to produce fresh batches of cheese curds. There, they package the curds on site and deliver them to local stores.

Chad Blase, petting one of his family’s 250 dairy cows January 4 on the Blase family farm in Ethan. They plan to use the milk from the Blase family cows when they build their operation on the Ethan farm in the spring.

Photo by: Sam Fosness / Republic

Laura Klock petting a dairy cow January 4 on her boyfriend Chad Blase’s family farm in Ethan.

Photo by: Sam Fosness / Republic

(Currently, they sell products at County Fair in Mitchell and the Renner Corner Locker.)

“Making cheese is part art and part science. We really enjoyed learning the art of making cheese for the first time and decided to make a run at this business,” Blase said.

From caramel curds to buffalo wing-flavored cheese, there is plenty of room for creativity and experimentation in Blase and Klock’s cheese making process. Perhaps one of the most unique products Farm Life Creamery has unveiled yet was recently put on the shelves with the creation of chocolate cheese, a fudge-like cheese that reads, “It’s fudging delicious” on the label.

Two packages of Farm Life Creamery cheese curds sitting next a silo on Chad Blase’s family farm in Ethan. Blase and his girlfriend Laura Klock, recently launched their company called Farm Life Creamery. The two currently produce cheese curds and wheels together in Crooks, South Dakota, where they then sell the fresh food products in local grocery stores around Mitchell.

Photo by: Sam Fosness / Republic

The family now has plans to break ground in the spring and bring the equipment from Valley Side to the Ethan farm, where they will build the home of the creamery business. While Blase and Klock are still in the process of constructing the overall layout of the future dairy and cheese production operation, they hope to build a storefront in a field on the farm, which is located a halfmile west of Ethan and 10 miles south of Mitchell.

With 250 head of dairy cows, the family plans on using half the number of Blase’s family cows to produce the cheese when they have their operation up and running on their Ethan farm.

Blase said bottling their own Grade A milk would help make Farm Life Creamery unique from other dairy companies, because he said there are no dairy companies that bottle their milk in the state of South Dakota, which would make them the lone pasteurized milk bottling company with operations in the state.

“When we build our facility, we plan to produce butter, ice cream and bottle our own milk,” Klock said. “There is a lot more involved in the cheese-making process than some of the other dairy products we want to produce, so learning it on the equipment we will own is invaluable.”

According to the South Dakota Department of Agriculture’s 2018 dairy report, there are 199 Grade A milk producers in the state, and only four of those Grade A dairy farms are in Davison County. Grade A milk meets the sanitary conditions for beverage consumption, while Grade B milk doesn’t meet fluid standards and is used in cheese and butter.

Education for youth

Given Blase and Klock were both raised in dairy farming, they stress the importance of knowing where food comes from. Thus, the family has aspirations to educate youth on the process of dairy farming, as Farm Life Creamery plans to host educational demonstrations on how the cheese making process works, along with dairy production. Future plans also include a “farm experience” with tours and even the chance to bottle feed a calf.

“It’s amazing how many kids have no idea where their food comes from, even right here in farm country South Dakota,” Blase emphatically said. “By educating more kids on how their food is made, we hope it can help the youth understand the importance of farming.”

The words “pure, fresh and simple,” are printed on Farm Life Creamery’s cheese curds, and are emblematic of the business’ mission.

“We want to give people a local option of pure, fresh cheese and dairy products,” Blase added. “When we plan to milk our cows for the cheese and other dairy products that we plan to produce, we will be delivering some of the freshest food people can buy in the area.”

Despite the challenges of the dairy industry, they are feeling confident with their dream of building a business unlike any other.

“Like almost every farmer I know, we do it for the love of farming,” Blase said, while gazing out at their Holstein calves in the backyard. “We are just scratching the surface, and I’m excited for what the future holds for us and my family’s farm business.”