Have one glass of Longmont Dairy Farm’s ultra creamy and delicious milk, and you’ll know why 25,000 customers on the Front Range remain loyal to this longtime institution.
The Family Business
Longmont Dairy Farm (LDF) is more than half a century old and three generations in. Founded by Reese Boatman, Karl Obluda and Jim Boyd, LDF has been delivering fresh Colorado milk to their customers’ doorsteps since 1965. In 1988, Boyd’s son and daughter-in-law, David and Susan, took over the business. Then in 2015, their children, Dan Boyd and Katie Herrmann, became the new owners.
Boyd is in charge of the mechanical side, including the processing plant, trucks and milk routes, while Herrmann oversees customer service, sales, marketing, IT and human resources. Since they took over, the two continue their grandfather’s legacy of running a sustainable and local dairy farm.
“We have big shoes to fill,” Herrmann says. “We want to keep our legacy alive. There’s a pressure to keep business going since my grandfather passed it on to my parents and now me and my brother. We have a sense of pride to keep this in the family. The Longmont Dairy Farm family has [served Coloradan] families as stewards of God, and we want to carry that forward.”
From Farm to Table
Herrmann says it takes a little over 48 hours for milk to travel from the Loveland dairy farm to a customer’s front door. The milk comes from Colorado born-and-raised Holstein cows, fed on a local diet of grain, hay and corn silage. Milk is stored in a tank until a truck transports it to the processing plant on Coffman Street.
At the processing plant, the milk is homogenized, pasteurized and bottled in recycled glass bottles. Crates of chilled milk bottles wait until nightfall when an armada of 35 delivery trucks head out at 11 p.m. and make deliveries into the wee morning hours, Sunday through Thursday. Herrmann says the company delivers about 4,000 gallons of milk daily between Loveland and Highlands Ranch.
A Convenient Coincidence
Ninety-nine percent of LDF’s business is from single-home deliveries but apartment-dwellers, fear not — milk is available for purchase at Your Butcher Frank and Longmont’s Whole Foods.
In the past, LDF has offered orange juice, eggs and butter. Since its 2018 plant expansion, LDF now delivers loaves of bread from Castle Rock’s Bread in the Box, cold brew coffee and fresh iced tea sourced by Boulder’s Silver Canyon Coffee and, more recently, Denver’s Prefare chicken and pizza meal kits.
Modern technology has made it more convenient for grocery delivery services. It’s expected the U.S. online grocery market will experience multi-billion dollar growth over the next few years. Regardless of market trends, LDF has proven its value to Front Range families for generations.
Sign up at longmontdairyfarm.com.
When you sign up for milk delivery service, Longmont Dairy Farm gives you a complimentary cooler. But, if you want to take the nostalgia up a notch, LDF also offers stainless steel and wooden milk boxes. Customers can then enjoy their breakfast with a glass of milk, free of antibiotics and rBST growth hormones.
Once you’re finished with your bottle, don’t toss it in the recycle bin. Instead, leave it in the cooler (or milk box) so the delivery driver can take it back to the plant to be washed, sanitized and used again.
Community Service
Since LDF launched the Milk Caps for Mooola program in 2012, it has collected 7 million milk caps and donated $350,000 to 350 participating elementary schools along the Front Range. Herrmann says with that money, students are able to access new technology, music programs and field trips.
https://www.boulderweekly.com/special-editions/colorados-freshest-milk/
Claire Lardizabal 