May/June 2020 - Brown Swiss Bulletin, Erica Davis

Change has been a part of the dairy industry as long as cows have been producing milk.

It seems to come a little quicker in current times, with wild turns at rapid speed. “buying local” is becoming a popular trend and the dairy markets are paying less for milk near and far. Toss in a wild virus and disrupt the supply chain and our heads are still spinning.

Consumers around Hiseville, Kentucky, are now able to buy local dairy products thanks to the newly opened milk processing plant, Legacy Dairy, owned and operated by the Doug Jones family.

Doug is a full-time traveling ultrasound technician, in addition to the full-time duties of owning and operating a dairy farm. His wife, Genelle, is a teacher by trade and is the “marketing genius” of the dairy. She handles all the farmers markets where Legacy Dairy is sold on weekends. Ally is the 20 year old daughter, and one of her main duties is to milk the cows. She also handles distribution, driving the bottled milk to the nearby stores to stock the shelves. Her 16 year old brother, Jagger, is the muscle behind moving crates of milk on the delivery route.

The whole family is involved in the processing and bottling. While automation is increasing in every corner of the dairy industry, Legacy Dairy uses a hand bottler. They add the labels by hand as well.

Timing is everything.

Legacy Dairy and the Jones family would have never been able to plan their debut to the marketplace to hit as effectively as it did. From start to market, it was 18 months of planning, building, inspections, pre-marketing, and praying. The day they started bottling, March 15, 2020, the local grocery store ran out of milk due to the buying frenzy caused by the Covid-19 virus. For the first two weeks they sold everything they could bottle to one store.

Ally is not sure what they are going to do in the fall when her mom and brother have to go back to school. It has been a blessing to have them at home as a full-time part of the milk marketing and distribution work force, even though the reason the reason they aren’t in a traditional classroom is a trial for everyone.

Brown Swiss Make it Rich

Legacy milk is pasteurized, 200 gallons at a time, and is marketed in gallon, half gallon, and pint sizes. It is not homogenized. All the milk is used from the Jones’ twelve cow herd of nine Brown Swiss, an Ayrshire, a Black and White and a Red and White Holstein. Ally feels the Brown Swiss milk is part of what gives their milk such a good, rich taste. According to their reviews on Facebook, those who drink it feel the same.

Chocolate milk is the next step, but “only after working to get their recipe right,” says Ally. She would also like to continue to connect with the local people, exploring different ways to be a small agri-tourism farm.

Ally and her dad are the main cow enthusiasts of the family. She went to college at the University of Kentucky for a short time, but quickly realized she wanted to come back home. She wanted to milk their cows, stationed at several different farms at that time. She spent valuable time observing other small family dairies who made milk processing work for them. Doug and Ally dispersed their cows in 2016 after a commodity barn fire and in February 2020 started back in the full-time dairy business to pursue Ally’s on-farm processing dream.

Duty Calls

Ally has exhibited Brown Swiss at the county, state, and national levels during her 4-H and FFA career. While she may be able to send a special few head to the shows in the late summer and fall, she won’t be able to spend the whole week at the show herself. Processing, bottling, and distributing keep her close to home. She is excited to see how some recently acquired, show-winning Brown Swiss families impact the Jones family ribbon collection over the next few months.

God has revealed his perfect timing to the Jones family and they look forward to continuing their journey with Brown Swiss and their local community!