Nestled in the Creemore countryside, Miller’s Dairy is a homogenized blend of old-school equipment, modern innovation, and deep-rooted agricultural knowledge.
The Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association’s August Summer Farm Day participants visited John and Marie Miller’s farm, where they shared their family’s history with dairy and milk processing.
John’s great-grandfather, Sam Bisset, processed fluid milk, butter and ice cream in Goderich with his Bisset Brothers creamery and was one of the first to serve milk in a glass jar in 1896.
The 800-acre dairy farm was originally John Miller’s great-grandmother’s family farm, before his father bought it in 1947. Since then, Miller has dreamed only of being a dairyman.
“My two older brothers are professional engineers, and she (his mother) thought I should be, at least, getting an education,” he said with a laugh. “I was bound and bent, I was going to be here, and this is where I’ve been for 50 plus years.”
After purchasing the farm in 2004, the Millers constructed a naturally ventilated free-stall barn with rubber-filled mattresses and a double-eight parallel parlour, expandable to 12, for the 130 head of Jersey milking cows and additional young stock.
The dairy farm operates separately from Miller’s Dairy, under the name Jalon Jerseys, and grows cattle feed and cash crops, corn, soybeans, and wheat.
In 2012, after much discussion, a fact-finding trip to several small New England dairies, the purchase of a vintage 1950s separator and homogenizer from South Carolina, and some on-farm infrastructure upgrades and construction, Miller’s Dairy was born.
Miller said that while the hardware may be vintage, the integration of modern technology allows seamless production of all fluid milk classifications, from whole milk to skim milk to flavoured milk and cream, with the flick of a switch.
“We made the decision when we started; it was grounds for divorce to have a store here,” joked Miller. “Our goal was to put a local product in every one of the stores (we service) to enhance their business.”
They sell 21,000 litres of milk weekly in grocery stores from Gravenhurst to Beamsville, skirting the Greater Toronto Area because logistically it was too challenging to serve, said Miller.
Processing the fluid milk into vintage-style glass bottles occurs on Mondays and Wednesdays; however, the rapidly growing demand could require a third bottling day, said Miller.
“We are using 100 per cent of the milk from the farm, and we are now bringing milk from another Jersey farm to process,” he said. “The sky is the limit for the amount of milk that Miller’s Dairy wants to process. We have no restriction on how much because it’s fluid milk.”
Miller’s Dairy glass bottles align with contemporary vintage marketing and environmental sustainability, while the three-dollar deposit helps keep costs manageable when people keep them as souvenirs.
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As fluid milk demand grew, so did the amount of cream generated. That’s when the Miller’s Dairy Ice Cream brand was born.
A throw-back to his great-grandfather, in 2017 Miller contacted the person who’d purchased the Bisset Brothers’ former creamery, to see if the 1950s Cherry Burrell ice cream machine was available. Mothballed for over 50 years, the machine was a 1,500-pound paperweight until it was refurbished and returned to production.
“It’ll fill a quart container in seven seconds. So you have to have pretty quick hands,” said Miller, adding that, like the iconic chocolate packaging I Love Lucy episode, the machine’s continuous production of 300 litres an hour can quickly devolve into chaos. “You could turn into Lucy and Ethel if you dropped your container on the ground.”
The ice cream brand launched in 2018 with three traditional flavours but has since expanded to feature hometown-named flavours, such as Jersey Mint, Cookies and Creemore, Cashtown Crunch, Rocky Mad River, and Moo Mountain Coffee.
Miller said each expansion had its challenges and stressors, but they’ve built a strong consumer base and a like-minded 15-member staff team that takes pride in producing locally grown products.
“We like to show our customers that this is Canadian milk,” he said, holding a small bottle with a Canadian flag on it. “We’re very proud of being Canadian.”
