This article, “Pasture(Land) To Plate,” is from the April/May 2010 issue of the Organic Cultivator, the newsletter from PastureLand’s organic certifier, Midwest Organic Services Association (MOSA).
The Upper Midwest has been a center of the grazing movement for many years. Farmers are well aware of the many benefits of pasture, and now consumers are becoming aware, too. Dairy products from grass-fed cows have more unsaturated fats, fewer saturated fats, and more vitamins and fatty acids such as conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and omega-3s (1). While health benefits are important, taste is also attracting more consumers. Flavor is affected by the types of forage, soil, and climate where the cows graze, producing dairy products with the unique taste of that specific region.
Regional and seasonal variation in taste of grass-fed dairy products has been a disadvantage for markets where consistency of product is important. Nowadays, foods with this regional identity are increasingly valued by American consumers as “local” has become trendy. PastureLand Cooperative is a great example of successfully marketing all benefits- health, taste, and regional identity.
When Edible Twin Cities announced their 2010 “Local Heroes” awards, PastureLand Cooperative was named Best Food Artisan. PastureLand, formed in 1998, is a group of four certified-organic farms in Minnesota, including MOSA Associates Roger and Michelle Benrud of Goodhue and the Stelling family of Millville, producing 100% grass-fed organic milk, butter, and cheeses.
Steve Young-Burns, CEO of PastureLand, says, “The new pasture rule doesn’t really affect us. I was watching the USDA webinar on [this] and thought, ‘what’s not to get about this?’ Then someone asked whether they could keep their cows in a tie-stall barn all day and I couldn’t believe it. Our cows are on pasture 365 days a year except for reasons of cow health. I did wonder about calves – the rule says that calves up to 6 months old can be confined for stage of life reasons. PastureLand calves are kept confined for much shorter periods of time. Dave Minar, of Cedar Summit Farm, a PastureLand farmer member, says ‘calves learn to be cows’ by being outside earlier, and are much easier to handle later in life.‘“
PastureLand’s flagship product is Summer Gold cultured butter. Both salted and unsalted Summer Gold butters have received blue ribbons from the American Cheese Society. PastureLand only makes it when the grass is at its peak in the summer.
Steve says, “Our butter’s golden color is naturally derived from beta-carotene in our pasture grasses, giving our Summer Gold butter the look of condensed sunshine.” The butter is made at MOSA-certified Pine River Dairy in very small batches. “We’re very happy with Pine River Dairy. They do such a nice job. They culture our butter overnight and a part of our butter’s flavor is from the culture. I even set up a PastureLand Youtube channel to show how our butter is made. They really take care in making our butter. [It] has never been better.”
Due to the higher ratio of unsaturated to saturated fat, Summer Gold butter is almost spreadable at refrigerator temperature. It also contains about 82% butterfat — 2% more than conventional butter — and this small increase in butterfat makes big improvements to baked goods. Other organic products include aged and mild raw milk cheddar cheeses. Five other specialty cheeses are made with PastureLand’s organic milk. About 15% of PastureLand’s milk goes into their products, with the rest sold as raw milk. The organic premium, especially for the milk produced during the winter months, is important to the cooperative’s viability.
Relationships are key to PastureLand’s success, including partnerships with Twin Cities natural foods co-ops and the Weston A. Price Foundation which promotes the health benefits of raw, grass-fed dairy products. Steve says, “We have a listing in the Foundation’s newsletter and get a ton of referrals from them. We get a call for raw butter every day. I have to tell them that the butter’s not raw, but it’s 100% grass-fed, and we have raw milk cheeses, and they’re thrilled. If we could do it legally, we would definitely get into the raw butter business.”
Steve says, “2009 was great in some ways and challenging in others. Butter sales have been excellent. We’re running out of butter now and to run out in March is amazing! In fact, our plan this year is to try to double butter production with the same number of cows.”
However, the downturn in the organic milk market has hit PastureLand. “We took four pay price cuts for our milk in the last year, and then we lost our skim milk contract in the middle of winter. Thankfully, Westby Creamery stepped in to take the winter milk, but we have no guarantees past May. Our main focus this year is finding ways to insulate ourselves from the milk market by finding new things to do with milk. Milk’s been around a long time and most of the things you can do with it have been done already, so it’s hard to figure out new products. New technology has given us some options. We’re looking at milk protein concentrates (MPCs) now as a possible way to use the skim milk. The challenge will be to create a market for value-added MPCs— American, organic, and grass-fed. MPCs make up such a small proportion of food products that cost shouldn’t be a reason to not buy American MPCs. We are also looking at whey protein concentrates. Until the technology existed to isolate it, whey was pig food.”
Steve concludes, “It’s been a challenge, but we really believe in what we’re doing. Grass-fed is better for the cows, the farmers, and the community.”
Click here to learn more about PastureLand.
A 2009 report from UW-Madison’s Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems on grass-based dairy products from provides more detail on grass-fed dairy.
(1) Butler, Gillian, et al. 2008. Fatty acid and fat-soluble antioxidant concen- trations in milk from high- and low-input conventional and organic systems: seasonal variation. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, Vol. 88 No. 8. pp. 1431-1441.
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