by Ruthy Wexler
Home Delivery: Part of what makes Longmont Dairy unique is the positive, loyal and individual way they treat employees, who tend to remain with the company. Workers are rewarded and celebrated for good performance; e.g., if route drivers have very low errors, they’ll earn free days off. Promotions are almost always done from within. LDF’s operation manager began as a route driver 14 years ago and worked his way up.
Co-Owners: Katie Herrmann and Dan Boyd, co-owners of Longmont Dairy Farm, pose with a variety of glass bottles, which their customers swear make the milk taste more delicious. Step-siblings, Katie and Dan, grew up working at Longmont Dairy. Both left Colorado to try their wings in other states and other jobs. Then, at coincidentally the same time, both decided to return home and enter the family business. In 2015, they bought in.
In the good old days, doctors made house calls, businesses answered phones and milk got delivered. Glendale itself was long called “Cowtown” due to the many dairies that used to be located there. But wait! Longmont Dairy — one of two remaining farms in Colorado that sells milk directly to customers — has just expanded into Cherry Creek, Glendale and Wash Park. Now residents in those neighborhoods can sign up to have bottles of fresh milk (and other products) delivered straight to their door.
Tradition!
“We’re very proud it’s only 48 hours, roughly, between the time our 550 cows are milked, and drivers get that milk to customers,” says Katie Herrmann, who, along with stepbrother Dan Boyd, is the third generation to run this family business.
Longmont Dairy began in 1965 when three fellows with experience in the dairy industry — Jim Boyd, Reese Boatman and Karl Obluda — bought a small herd of cows and built a processing plant behind the Boyds’ home in Longmont, Colo. By then, science had made milk from faraway dairies safe to drink, so increasing numbers were buying it in supermarkets. But the trio decided to create what they loved: an old-fashioned dairy.
By 1988, when Reese Boatman and Jim Boyd (remaining partners) retired, certain traditions had been established: producing the best possible product by feeding cows with the best quality grain and “serving customers beyond their expectations.”
Jim’s son David, along with his wife Susan (Herrmann’s mother), took over next. Although the couple modernized and grew the business substantially — reorganizing it as Longmont Dairy Farm, Inc. (LDF) — they kept what mattered, including home delivery, which had been almost entirely phased out across the country.
In 1991, a crisis arose: only one manufacturer of glass milk bottles remained in the U.S. Reluctantly, David and Susan began to explore other containers. Then — just as they were running out — their bottle cap supplier decided to produce the bottles.
Local
Herrmann and Boyd are aware they are carrying on a legacy.
Both grew up working at the dairy. Both left Colorado to figure out what they wanted from life — which, it turned out after some years, was to circle back home and buy into the business.
Despite opposite skill sets — Herrmann oversees marketing and customer service; Boyd’s in charge of the plant and trucks — they share one vision: to run Longmont Dairy with that same combination of business acumen and old-fashioned values.
Not the easiest balancing act — especially in a world where Amazon Fresh can deliver all your groceries almost immediately.
Longmont Dairy’s Own Cows: To maintain quality, they decided to offer milk produced by only their own cows and bottled in their plant. The cows are milked around the clock, the milk is sent from the farm to their processing plant where it is bottled within 24 hours. Then, at 10 p.m., the deliveries start, and milk is on the customers’ doorsteps before breakfast.
“Our hope,” says Herrmann, “is people will continue to support a local business that provides a premium product.”
Understanding Milk
“There are misconceptions about milk and labels,” Herrmann explains. “We give our cows high quality feed from local farmers. Our milk is very clean and natural. But since the herd’s feed is not ‘certified organic,’ and we do treat them with antibiotics when they’re sick, we can’t call our milk organic. However, we do not use supplemental growth hormones or steroids.
“People think if it’s not labeled organic, milk might contain antibiotics. Not possible. Because any residue of antibiotics in milk is illegal. Every day, we do a ‘snap test’ — and if there’s even a smidgeon of antibiotic residue, the entire tank is disposed of.”
Caps For Sale!
After Herrmann and Boyd began a Park Hill route two years ago, they began getting calls: when will you be in other Denver neighborhoods? That’s when they made plans to expand in this direction. “It’s much easier to open up a route next to an existing route,” explains Boyd. “But there are challenges. Our drivers are out at night. These new neighborhoods are denser than suburban areas, making that a bit tricky. But our drivers are tenacious, skilled and dependable.”
“Another challenge is that residents in new neighbo
Generations: Longmont Dairy Farm began as an “old fashioned dairy” with clear values: giving customers the best possible product along with service beyond expectation. Those values have been handed down and honored by family members. Here are three generations together: left to right, top row: Katie Herrmann, Dan Boyd, David Boyd (Dan’s father, Katie’s stepfather), Susan Boyd (Katie’s mother); front row: Jim Boyd (who has since passed away), one of the three men who started the business in 1965.
rhoods aren’t familiar with what makes us different,” adds Herrmann. “Like our core values, protecting the environment with reusable bottles and recyclable caps. And giving back to communities.”
Longmont Dairy not only partners with local charities and organizations and gives milk to two Ronald MacDonald houses, they help hundreds of schools with their Milk Caps for MOOOLA program.
Any school within LDF’s delivery area can sign up. They set up a box for all the LDF bottle caps students collect and Longmont pays five cents for each cap. To date, 5 million caps have been turned in and Longmont has given schools over $250,000.
“It’s the easiest way to earn money for your school,” enthuses Jenny Kahn, secretary at the William Roberts K-8 School in Stapleton. “With Longmont’s check, we created a scholarship fund for the 8th grade trip. Plus, the kids were aware they were helping the environment.”
Local Goodness
Former Cowtown: Glendale throughout much of its history has been a booming town by adopting whatever Denver rejects. At the beginning of the 20th century Denver regulated out of business many of its dairy operations which Glendale welcomed with such open arms that the city became known as Cowtown.
Caps can be returned from any LDF bottle, including half & half, chocolate milk, eggnog and “protein milk.” Longmont’s products have grown in variety, but the emphasis remains local — or natural. “Eggs, from a farm north of Fort Lupton,” lists Herrmann. “Granola and oatmeal from Wheatridge. Cheese from Oregon. Mary Mountain Cookie Dough from Fort Collins …”
Several “new, really exciting” products will soon be added, “after our plant expansion,” says Herrmann. “But we’re not revealing what they are until early summer. We want our customers to be surprised.”
For more information, call 303-776-8466 or visit www.longmontdairy.com.