BiS-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, January 12,1985
Leo's Daily Market will participate in Farm Show's Food Marketplace
BY SUZANNE KEENE
CARLISLE - For the fifth
consecutive year the list of Farm
Show exhibits will include a
Pennsylvania Food Marketplace
featuring the finished products of
the farmer’s labors.
Visitors to this popular
marketplace, located on the lower
concourse off the large arena, will
be treated to Lebanon bologna,
canned scrapple, ring bologna,
fruit juices, baked goods, pickles
on a stick, cookies, soft pretzels,
goat’s milk fudge, and other
goodies.
This year, hungry visitors will
also be able to enjoy a heaping
cone of creamy, homemade ice
cream from Leo’s Dairy Farm
Market in Carlisle. Leo’s Dairy is
one of five new exhibitors in the
Food Marketplace this year,
bringing the total number of
exhibitors to 25.
Leonard Leo Jr. and his sons,
Leonard Leo 111 and Tom Leo, are
responsible for producing the tasty
ice cream that weary Farm Show
visitors will be enjoying next week.
Using milk and cream from their
herd of grade Holsteins, the Leos
produce their own ice cream mix.
Most businesses making
homemade ice cream, the Leos
Tom Leo shows how he scoops creamy ice cream into
packages to be sold in the farm market. Tom makes his own
ice cream mix using the dairy's milk and cream.
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said, use commercial mixes made
elsewhere.
By using all their own products,
the Leos can completely control
the quality and freshness of their
product. Tom spends about one
day a week producing 150 to 200
gallons of ice cream mix and
devotes another full day to tran
sforming the mix into about 400
gallons of ice cream.
The creamy finished product,
containing 13% to 14 percent
butterfat, is available in 30 flavors.
The Leos package their ice cream
in half-gallon, five-quart and
three-and-one-half gallon con
tainers for sale in the dairy store.
Customers can also grab a cone to
enjoy on their way home from the
farm market.
Dairy products are the keystone
of the Leos’ business and the
family is perfectly equipped to
produce, process and market their
product. Production starts out in
the bam, where the Holsteins
munch on hay and silage. Leonard
Leo 111, also known as Lenny, is in
charge of the herd which consists
of 220 grade animals with 120
milking.
The Leos raise all their own feed
on the two farms they own. Their
farm in Carlisle has about 210
Dairy employee Dave Myers works at putting the milk i
acres and another farm in
Newville has 410 acres. Lenny says
they also use their own chopped
corn fodder for bedding, an
economical practice that has given
them good results.
The Leos milk two times a day in
a panlor that can accommodate 12
cows at a time. They produce
about 500 gallons each day.
The milk is piped through a plate
cooler, which cools it to a tem
perature of about 40°F. within one
minute after it leaves the cow. The
milk is then stored in two 2,100
gallon tanks.
An underground pipeline carries
the milk to another building, where
it is processed. It is separated,
pasteurized and homogenized,
before it is packaged in cartons
and rushed to a walk-m cooler.
The Leos make their own butter
from the cream that is removed
from skim and lowfat milk.
The milk is on the shelf the same
day it comes from the cow,
Leonard said, and customers are
assured a fresh product. Con
sumers buying their milk in a
grocery store are usually pur
chasing milk that is four or five
days old.
Running an efficient dairy farm
and store takes knowledge and
management skills that can’t be
Leonard Leo Jr. (center) and his sons Tom (left) and Lenny, pose in front of a
promotional sign on one of their dairy barns.
learned in a day. Leonard Leo got
his apprenticeship at an early age
when his father died, leaving
behind a widow and nine children.
It was then that Leonard and his
brothers decided they would make
something of Sunny Hill Farm, and
Employee Cheryl Shughart offers a customer a cone of
homemade cherry vanilla ice cream. Leo’s Dairy will have
employees at the Farm Show next week selling their delicious
ice cream.
DRINK MILK
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they turned it into a successful
dairy farm market like the one
Leonard now owns in Carlisle.
Two years ago, one of Leonard’s
brothers wanted out of the
business, so Sunny Hill Farm was
sold and Leonard started his
search for a new business. When he
found a vacant dairy farm market
in Carlisle, he jumped at the op
portunity and purchased the farm.
In the nearly two years since
then, Leonard and his sons have
been working hard to make a
success of their venture. They built
their herd from scratch and are
at 1
Leonard Leo shows the dial which registers the milk's
temperature as it is processed, then cooled.
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pleased with their progress. “The
herd has improved quite a bit from
last year,” Lenny reports.
Much of the equipment was in
disrepair, but now most of it is in
good shape, Tom said.
They have also introduced a
variety of other products in ad
dition to their milk, ice cream and
butter. The dairy market has a deli
where customers can purchase
fresh meats, cheese, salads and
soups. Their store also offers bulk
products and snack foods.
While they have made much
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