Page 18—Farm and Home Section, Lancaster Farming, Saturday, March 18, 2000
‘Brown Cow’ Store Has Cream-Line Milk
ANDY ANDREWS
Lancaster Farming Staff
BROGUE (York Co.) Mo
torists traveling a few miles
south of here on Rt. 74 can look
at a new building on the right a
certain way and picture a big
brown cow.
That “cow” overlooks some
of the nicest farm scenery in the
whole county.
Importantly, the newly con
structed big brown building,
three miles south of Brogue, is
home to the Brown Cow Coun
try Market, owned and operated
by the H.E. Heindel and Sons
family.
Inside are 4,000 square feet of
retail space that stocks a wide
array of homemade dairy prod
ucts (including aged Cheddars),
a variety of exotic meats (includ
ing emu and bison), their own
meats (from their 3,000-head
finishing operation), in addition
to jams, preserves, pepper
sauces . . . not to mention a
bakery literally in the works, ac
cording to farm store manager
Jeffrey Heindel.
The farm market, which cost
more than $1 million, is a special
project for Heindel. Himself a
graduate of Lancaster Bible Col
lege with worldwide experience
in Christian outreach missions,
the goals of the country market
are twofold: first, provide a way
to help farmers direct-market
Heindel was careful to ensure backups are present. The
market uses this 125-kilowatt, diesel-generated backup
generator that costs about $lB,OOO.
Becky Jaggers works part-time at the store.
their own product to make the
family farm profitable. Second,
take the profits from the store
and funnel them back to addi
tional Christian outreach work.
“That’s my motivation,” he
told several members of the So
lanco Young Farmers Associa
tion at a tour at the farm and
market Tuesday.
Construction of the new
market began in September last
year. The store employs five full
time and 7-8 people part time.
Although the official grand
opening isn’t until mid-May, the
farm store itself was up and run
ning Monday this week.
A grand purpose of the farm
market is to sell milk and milk
products processed on the farm
directly to customers. A new
Pladot mini-dairy (first of its
kind in the U.S.) was recently in
stalled, and the painstaking pro
cess of obtaining federal
regulatory approval is well
under way to sell additional
products.
After some legal hurdles were
recently overcome, Heindel
noted they could begin to
market their own milk from the
Brown Swiss herd (with 30-32
cows on test) in the Hope Acres
label.
Milk is moved in a small truck
with a refrigerated tank. The
milk is then moved to a 1,600-
(Turn to Page 19)
Adam Rishel, farm market dairy plant manager, works on the batch pasteurizer
dairy processing facility at the market.
Placing UPC numbers on the pepper sauces at the store are, from left, Roxy Heindel
and Sherry Burks.
Solanco Young Farmers Association members toured the Heindel farm market Tues
day. From left, Ed Herrmann, association adviser; Jeffrey Heindel, farm market mana
ger; Vic Brinton; Steve Aument and son Matthew; Sam Click; and Karl Herr. Photo by
Andy Andrews
in the