Small Town News

Big Red Barn Dairy line is expanding

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Bob and Jeanette Kappers want to get creamed, you might say. After all, they swear "You can whip our cream, but you can't beat our milk."

It's all part of being cultured and outside the box.

"We have chocolate milk and now we have cream, Bob's been working on yogurt, and ice cream's really close, " said Big Red Barn Dairy co-proprietor Jeanette, who, along with her husband, is pleased to be in the process of developing new dairy products to sell from their on-farm milk bottling facility on Fillmore County Road 5, just south of Chatfield.

With the success of milk sales flowing from their 35 grass-fed dairy cows to the consumer since they began bottling milk on the farm in December 2004, the Kappers now sell both white and chocolate milk. They also have found a market for cream sold in their traditional half-gallon glass bottles imprinted with the family brand "Big Red Barn."

Bob related, "We've really done well. When we started, we didn't think we'd be selling this much cream because we thought people wouldn't use that much, but right now, we've sold out of cream the last two or three weeks. Once they try it, they find ways to use it.

"People who are lactose intolerant can use it instead of milk because there's no lactose in cream."

Machinery to produce yogurt is being retooled and updated, as is the machinery to make ice cream.

"The yogurt will be called 'cultured milk', " he stated, pointing out that "it will be pourable, so it's good for smoothies and things like that."

Bob added, "There'll be no additives - regular yogurt people are used to seeing gelatin added, and we're not doing that. We've got it pretty much figured out now. We have to go through the process of getting licensed for it. It uses the same machinery we've got now."

Jeanette is excited about the impending debut of their ice cream. She said, "Ice cream's pretty close. We had hoped, of course, to have it by the first of January, but then we thought for sure by Dairy Month in June, but there's been a lot of setbacks with our old machinery."

Bob is busy reconfiguring an ice cream machine from the 1950s, meaning that he's dealing with replacing parts that are harder to find. "Rebuilding and installing it is taking longer than we thought, but it's exciting to see it in progress. We hope progress goes a little faster."

His wife observed, "Bob's never been in the box.' He's always an 'outside the box' thinker, so then it's never the easy route, but we're learning how to pasteurize local strawberries and blueberries, whatever.

"We're hoping to make some special flavors - eggnog is one. We made really good eggnog... seasonally, of course, and that's gone very well. We made it two years ago, and it was good. Last year, it doubled sales."

Bob elaborated, "We're looking at a list of things we want to try, and the nice part is we have the machinery we've got, because we can switch flavors every batch if we want to. We can try adding candy bars and things like that."

For their eldest son's recent high school graduation, the couple made an ice cream dessert piled with frozen cream "which almost tasted like another kind of ice cream."

Not to be topped, they can convert their cream to whipped cream with the simple addition of vanilla, powdered sugar and carbon dioxide. Jeanette said, "Pedal Pushers in Lanesboro buys our milk, and they've got this really neat container people can purchase from them or us, but you just add one CO2 and it comes out like whipped cream."

That's the way to any dairy addict's heart.

The Kappers have "loyal customers, " according to Jeanette. "We're grateful to them. I think they will tell people about us. We're still here, hopefully getting better and making more products."

In addition to selling 1 percent, 2 percent, whole and chocolate milk from the farm's store, Big Red Barn milk is sold at Skippy's and R-4 Meats in Chatfield, at the Eyota Market in Eyota, at Rochester Produce and all three Hy-Vee stores in Rochester, Don's Family Market in Spring Valley, at Bluff Country Co-op in Winona, and at Wykoff Grocery Co-op in Wykoff. It's also delivered to customers if they request it, although delivery generally must be in or near Chatfield.

Bob and Jeanette credit their three sons, extended family and friends with helping to make business happen. "The kids all help a little...our boys are good. We're very blessed to have friends and family."

For more information on Big Red Barn milk, cream, ice cream or Bob's yogurt venture, call Bob or Jeanette at 507-867-3556 or log onto the family's website at

www.kappersbigredbarn.com



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© 2011 The Chatfield News Chatfield, Minnesota. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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