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Our Plant in 1948 |
Today |
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| In 1928 N. E. Leep and his wife Hilda bought a dairy farm near Lowell IN known as the Pleasant View Farm. They produced milk for the wholesale market. The next year the Pure Milk Ass'n put into effect what was known as the Base and Surplus System of producing milk. The average amount of milk that you produced September through November would be your daily base and any milk above that would bring a lower price. In September they started with a base of 10 cans of milk a day. The cows were allowed into a sweet corn patch to increase production. On the fourth day they were left in the corn patch a little longer and that night many of the cows were sick, and some died over the next couple of days. The remaining cows were nursed back to health but at the end of the November they only averaged 5 cans per day. They went to the PMA office and told them their story but no luck. During 1930 their base was 5 cans a day. That year they increased milk production to get a larger base the next year, but there was so much milk on the market that the PMA froze the bases and then cut them by 10%. By then they were producing 15 cans a day and their base was 4 1/2 cans. Then they went to the PMA and asked for a 10 can base or they would start to sell the milk retail. That is when they went into the retail business. They decided to start in Highland IN. milk was 14 cents a quart so they decided to sell it for 10. On the first day they filled 60 quarts in the milk shed and sold 46. From there the business grew from Highland to much of northern Indiana and Illinois. Our current plant was built in 1948. We have changed with a changing industry and we look forward to the challenges in the 21st century. |
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