It’s the “gotcha” question that politicians are often asked to see whether they’re in touch with the common man: What’s the price of milk? The answer, at most New York supermarkets, is roughly 95 cents a quart. So why are people lining up at Manhattan’s Union Square Greenmarket to buy milk that, including a $1 deposit for the glass bottle, costs nearly three times as much?
The food aficionados who are addicted to Ronnybrook Farm Dairy’s products run out of adjectives when they try to explain why they’re willing to pay extra for the Osofsky family’s high-quality, hormone- and preservative-free milk, cream, butter, yogurt, soft cheeses, and ice cream. Okay, the returnable bottles are quaint, and the story line is appealing—how nice to buy from a family farm versus an anonymous corporate conglomerate—but can a generic product like good old-fashioned milk really be that memorable? Take a few sips of this creamy cow’s brew, slather Ronnybrook butter on a hot slice of toast, or put a dollop of impossibly rich crème fraîche on a pile of berries, and it’s easy to become a true believer.
“The butter and the milk are as close as I can find to what I had in Europe growing up,” enthuses Austrian chef Kurt Gutenbrunner, of New York’s Wallsé restaurant. Robert Rising, a waiter at the Four Seasons hotel bar, comes into Manhattan from his home in suburban Mount Vernon on his day off every week just to get his Ronnybrook fix. “The milk is great to drink and wonderful to cook with,” Rising says as he trades in five empty bottles. “It really does taste different.”
Such praise is gratifying for the large Osofsky clan, who have triumphed against all odds at holding onto the farm in Ancramdale, New York, that has been in the family since 1941. The three Osofsky brothers and their children have always followed the kind of practices that make environmentalists happy: The cows aren’t given hormones, are pastured in season, and are wintered on hay and corn grown by the Osofskys. While most commercial dairies homogenize—processing the milk to break up and evenly distribute the fat globules—Ronnybrook skips that step to keep the fresh-from-the-farm taste (and also because unbroken fat globules are more easily digested). They call it Creamline with good reason; a layer of cream floats at the top of every bottle.
Yet even with a stellar reputation and premium-priced products, the Osofskys are struggling to turn a profit and keep the farm going for the next generation. “I love visiting Dean & DeLuca or The Vinegar Factory in New York because they treat me like a big deal,” says Ronny Osofsky, at 62 the oldest of the Osofsky brothers and a full-time farmer. But, Ronny adds ruefully, “The real joke is that I think the guys stocking the shelves make more than we do.”
The Ronnybrook story is quintessentially American: the tale of an immigrant Jewish family who settled in upstate New York at the turn of the last century, and of their well-ed ucated progeny, who were eager to get away from the demands of farm life only to discover that there really is no place like home. Add to that drama a dash of ingenuity. In trying a myriad of schemes to turn the farm’s fortunes around, the Osofsky family has shown a flair both for developing delicious new products and for marketing their folksy style in a manner that may yet save the day.
The cast of characters begins with the farm’s namesake, Ronny, and his brothers, Sid, 57, a worldly MBA with a knack for recipes, and Rick, 58, a small-town lawyer and tractor me chanic. Ronny’s wife, Cathy, handles the orders for this 25-person operation; his youngest son, Daniel, 22, milks the cows daily. Rick’s daughter Kate, 30, manages Ronnybrook’s accounts, and his son Peter, 27, trucks the dairy’s products from the tiny village of Ancramdale on the two-hour trip into Manhattan. It’s a close-knit clan that works and plays together.
The best vantage point to see the family’s 650-acre spread in the Hudson Valley is from a hilltop meadow: It’s gorgeous rolling countryside, dotted with silos and barns and 100-year-old farmhouses, where family members, farmhands, and dairy employees live. Kate Osofsky drove me to this spot so I could see the land and appreciate her recent decision to give up teaching in Boston to move back to Ancramdale with her husband and daughter.
“I grew up in 4-H, raising cows,” says this slender woman, who has an undergraduate degree from Wesleyan and a master’s degree from Lesley University. She’s now living in the handsome farmhouse that belonged to her grandparents David and Helen Osofsky. “You don’t know how much you miss it until you go away.”
Up close, Ronnybrook is a rambling, funky kind of place. The pristine dairy is a two-minute walk from the manure and mud of the barn. Ronny Osofsky sets the easygoing tone—he’s a man who loves his cows and has strong feelings about what it takes to produce good milk. Walking through the barn, he offers a running commentary on everything from the pedigrees of his Holsteins to what the cows are fed to the care and personalities of his whimsically named animals. The cows prick up their ears at the sound of his voice. “This is Satellite—whoops, sorry, she sneezed on you. Step over here and meet Bliss, she’s my son Daniel’s favorite. And this is Pinky, she’s blind,” he says. “There aren’t a lot of farmers who would keep a blind cow, but Pinky’s worth the trouble.”
Pinterest
