颤抖小蜜桃

颤抖小蜜桃 Seth

Growing up on a dairy farm in Salem, New York, Seth McEachron 鈥�04 could have felt a lot of pressure to take over the family business someday. His family had been dairy farmers in the area for nearly a century, after all. 

But he and his father made a plan for McEachron鈥檚 future: Go to college to study something other than agriculture, then take four years to try something different before deciding whether he was interested in the farm. 

McEachron chose 颤抖小蜜桃 because he could get a broad liberal arts education and study business. Also, his sister, Sarah McEachron 鈥�01, was already an education student at Skidmore. The business and economics courses he took at the College inspired him. 

鈥淢y business classes led me to want to be an entrepreneur and got me excited about seeing what we could do to improve our farm, make it more sustainable and bring a great product to local people,鈥� McEachron says. 

He was so eager to get started, he didn鈥檛 finish the four-years-off-the- farm plan post-college. After a stint working for agricultural financial services company Farm Credit East, he partnered with his father, Don, in 2006 to start planning and implementing some fresh ideas on the farm. 

First up: Bottling their own milk so they could offer a single-source, 100 percent traceable and local product. It鈥檚 an idea they had started discussing while McEachron was still at Skidmore, but the timing wasn鈥檛 right. By 2006, with the local food movement picking up, they were ready to take the leap and wanted to be the first dairy farmers in the area to do it. 

鈥淲e were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, when people wanted to support local farms and get a high-quality product they enjoyed,鈥� McEachron says. 

In 2008, Battenkill Valley Creamery was up and running, with milk going from cow to bottle and on a truck for delivery within eight hours, resulting in a fresher product. Because the milk is separated cold rather than hot 鈥� and the whole milk is 4 percent instead of the standard 3.25 percent milk fat 鈥� it鈥檚 especially flavorful and creamy, too. Battenkill鈥檚 milk has twice been rated No. 1 Highest Quality Milk in the state by Cornell University鈥檚 Department of Food. And more than 1,000 high-end coffee shops and restaurants, such as Michelin-star restaurants like Per Se and Jean-Georges in New York City, use Battenkill鈥檚 milk, cream and half-and-half. 

Battenkill does its own distribution, too, keeping it mostly local. Other than business deliveries to New York City and some home deliveries in 

Peekskill, Poughkeepsie, New Jersey and Long Island, they don鈥檛 stray far from the Northway, mostly delivering to stores and restaurants from the Albany area to north of Lake George. They also offer home delivery in Saratoga Springs. 

In 2009, the company started producing ice cream and opened an ice cream parlor at their Creamery Store in Salem as a way to draw the public to the farm. And they鈥檝e continued to innovate, collaborating recently with Kru Coffee on a popular cold brew latte. Battenkill provides the milk and bottles the drink. 

The Creamery has grown to meet demand 鈥� it produced 600 gallons of milk a week when it opened in 2008 and now produces 52,000 gallons a week 鈥� but hasn鈥檛 faced the same pressure most smaller dairy farms do. 

鈥淲e鈥檙e lucky because we bottle our own milk,鈥� McEachron says. 鈥淲e set our own milk prices and we鈥檙e cutting out the middle man.鈥� While McEachron says he can鈥檛 predict the future of farming, he anticipates more consolidation. 

鈥淏usiness in general is survival of the fittest,鈥� he says.

And he continues to draw upon the lessons he learned at Skidmore. 鈥淵ou鈥檝e got to be creative 鈥� come up with different ways of doing something, or a new product, or try to figure out how to make your product differentiated,鈥� he says. 鈥淎ll of that is important with Creative Thought Matters.鈥�