Crystal Springs Is Thriving with On-Site Processing
Published: Friday, May 29, 2020
The amount of milk Crystal Springs Creamery sells directly to its customers in an average week wasn't on the tip of Tim Martin's tongue, although he did say 6,500 glass bottles were filled during one recent production period.
A more telling indicator of demand for dairy items produced at the 600-acre operation in Osceola is the line of people waiting to check out on any given Saturday.
"We need to get another cash register, I guess," Martin said last Wednesday. "I had no idea this would grow to what it is now, and it looks like the end's not here yet. Seems a lot of people just like glass bottles."
A dairy farmer since birth, Martin moved his family from Nappanee to the stately brick house on the corner of Ash and Jackson roads, just this side of Elkhart County's western boundary, to begin his own conventional milking operation in 1996.
The decision to add on-site processing and a cash-and-carry farm store 21 springs later has turned out to be a fruitful one.
Crystal Springs started out with yogurt and cheese curds, and introduced what's become a popular full line of liquid milk just over a year ago. The farm store also sells locally sourced frozen meats, canned goods and other food items, and there's a quaint gift shop operated by oldest daughter, Shannon, 23.
Martin's wife, Cheryl, manages the accounting side of things; eldest son, Troy, 25, helps run the processing operation; Donovan, 21, takes cares of the cows; Brianna, 17, pitches in wherever she's needed; and Carson "just likes the cows," Martin said. "He's 8; he does whatever."
The farm also employs six part-time helpers in the processing and retail operation, and a delivery man. A pair of irresistible calves penned near the parking lot welcome customers to the property.
The creamery is named after a company that manufactured butter in the area in the late 1800s.
"It's just something we came across," Martin said. "There's no connection with us, we just thought, 'Yeah, that's a nice name.'"
After years of strictly contract dairy farming, Martin couldn't resist the urge to make his own mark.
"It was in the back of my mind for a long time, and it just came together one step at a time," he said. "I always thought we could do better by taking it right from the cow to the customer. It's a little more personal because you get to see the people who use it.
"We're not competing with (the high-production dairy farms) because I've got a different product. We're all glass and we're vat pasteurized which gives it a little bit different flavor people can taste—there's no doubt about it."
It's common knowledge that the dairy industry has been going through a prolonged period of volatility as bottled water, carbonated soft drinks, sports and energy drinks and plant-based milk alternatives challenge milk for market share.
Nevertheless, after coming out of a downturn that lasted more than four years, dairy producers entered 2020 with high hopes. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed weak links in the supply chain. While grocery stores were experiencing shortages and limiting purchases—for reasons Martin still doesn't quite understand—dairy farmers in some areas were discarding excess milk the market couldn't absorb.
"I still have the disconnect with saying you have to dump when you walk into Walmart's and they limit you," Martin said. "That doesn't make sense. But when (consumers) couldn't get it elsewhere, they came here. We didn't limit people and we didn't run out."
Through it all, Crystal Springs' business remained steady, and, if anything, increased as customers were turning to other sources of dairy products. Martin is still surprised by the way his milk sales have escalated.
"There was a big, buy-local (sentiment) around here before (the pandemic), which I think accelerated it," he said. "But in my mind, just as a dairyman, I didn't start with milk to begin with because I thought, 'Do people really want milk that bad because you know, you can get it at Walmart really cheap? Would people really want to pay extra for off-the-farm milk?'
"But we got a lot of requests for it, and that told me a lot more people want milk than you think. If you look at the statistics, 90 percent of the fridges across America have milk in them, and you can't say that about yogurt and cheese curds. It was pretty amazing how much store traffic it generated."
The fact the bottles can be returned—for a $2 deposit on half-gallons and quarts and $1 on pints—and reused, appeals to many sustainability-conscious customers while others just prefer to buy from a small shop. Others, Martin said, like knowing the milk they purchase all comes from the same farm as opposed to mass-produced dairy combining milk from numerous sources.
Martin's 300, mostly Holstein and Jersey, cows are milked three times a day. The milk flows from the milk house through 230 feet of Indiana's only state-approved underground dairy pipeline, Martin said proudly, to the receiving room and then it's vat pasteurized at 145 degrees for 30 minutes.
"That's opposed to HDST, which is high temperature/short time, that everybody else does," he said.
According to Martin, many lactose-intolerant milk lovers can handle vat-pasteurized milk because the lower temperature preserves the enzymes that aid the digestion of the sugar found naturally in milk.
Contrary to a popular perception that health-conscious consumers demand eye-catching, new and improved products, good old whole milk, with 3.8 percent milkfat (grocery store milk is 3.2 percent), is Crystal Springs' biggest seller. Martin produces conventional homogenized whole milk and minimally processed, old-fashioned creamline milk with cream that rises to the top—it can be shaken or stirred.
Chocolate milk is his next best seller and other flavors include orange cream, strawberry and Martin's specially blended, cold-brew, coffee style. Crystal Springs also stocks homogenized skim and 2-percent milk, heavy cream, Cheddar cheese and three varieties of butter.
Crystal Springs milk can be found in three Martin's grocery chain stores (no relation) and what he calls "mom-and-pop" outlets in Elkhart, Goshen, Mishawaka, South Bend, Wakarusa, Rochester and Shipshewana. He also sells through Marketwagon.com, an online home-delivery system.
"That was really going strong because people didn't want to leave home," Martin said. "It's tapered off slightly, but still going strong. The people who run it say it's going to continue because now they know you, but we'll see."
Twenty-five percent of Martin's milk is used by his local operation and the remaining 75 percent is sold to a small co-op.
On-site processors must be state-regulated just like the major companies. The Indiana Board of Animal Health, which provides guidance for starting a small dairy or homestead processing plant, such as Crystal Springs, lists 26 local dairy processors in Indiana.
Doug Leman, executive director of Indiana Dairy Producers Assn., likes the idea of on-site processing as a value-added option other dairy farmers may want to consider.
"There's definitely been new start-ups the last couple years and I know there's quite a bit of interest in them right now," Leman said. "If they have the drive and desire, niche markets can do great and provide an opportunity to expand in a way other than increasing the size of the farm, per se.
"On-farm processors are reaching out to a different consumer. There's a segment of people who are willing to pay more for a product if they can go right to the source and see where it's coming from. They like to support somebody who's strictly local."
With all due respect to Martin, Leman said that while on-site producers employ alternative methods for manufacturing and marketing, they are members of the same family.
"Milk is milk," he said. "It's all being pasteurized and you can't alter the ingredients. It might not be homogenized, and some people are really going to like that, but it's just a preference by the consumer.
"Across the nation, the dairy industry has been consolidating and growing, and farms are getting larger which is a fact we don't need to hide. But with the dairy business, finding a way to enhance your own bottom line is always a smart thing to do. We're all different and those niche markets need to be covered, too."
With customers coming to his store from as far away as Michigan City, Martin believes "there's probably room for more operations like this, the way it looks, anyway." He's considering adding ice cream as Crystal Springs' next step going forward, but despite numerous requests, won't be the one to resurrect home delivery any time soon while acknowledging that may be a worthwhile opportunity for someone else.
What Martin knows for sure is the satisfaction he derives from local processing doesn't compare to the commercial relationship he also maintains.
"It's 100 percent from what we're doing here because this is where everything is focused," he said. "People want milk; I see that every day. Milk's a big seller, so don't get discouraged if you're milking cows. Per capita consumption is the highest it's ever been and we haven't scratched the surface of what we can do with dairy.
"People like choices. If we narrowed it down to one item in our coolers, we wouldn't have the problem with lines I was talking about."
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