Larry Stapp, Whatcom This Whey

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, good morning everyone. Welcometo the public Affairs show of your favorite
iHeartRadio station. On the phone,I have Larry Stapp. He is the
owner of twin Brook Creamery and thatLarry, where's that London? Really?
Absolutely? And we technically are evennorth of London four miles. Our dairy

(00:20):
farm is half a mile from theUS Canada border, so I can look
out the window and see my Canadianfriends. That's wonderful, all right.
So you and a bunch of otherdairy farmers in the Great Northwest, especially
up north Watcombe County, are puttingon come and visit Us kind of festival
where people can learn all about dairyfarming. And it is called what Come

(00:46):
this Way? What come this Way? And you know how to spell way,
don't you? Yeah? Wh ey as in way as in what's
in milk. It's very clever.Come this way Way is a byproduct of
cheesemaking. Oh okay, yep,okay, I'm glad to clear that up,

(01:07):
Larry. So folks can come Junefifteenth, What Come this Way?
And you can the public kind ofcreate your own farm tour by coming to
farms like Larry's and a bunch ofother farms. So Larry, tell us
why you all wanted to get together. Well, first of all, how

(01:27):
many farms are involved in this tour? You know? I can't answer that
right off the top of my head. I think there's probably about five different
dairy farms that are actually operating dairies. And then there is also a number
of stores or tee shops that justdo cheese and stuff like that. I

(01:51):
actually haven't seen the full map,but last year I think there was about
a dozen that participated altogether. Andthe way the tour works is this.
You can go to the Dairy FarmersAre Washington website I believe, and download
it's called Watch Them this Way.It's a it's a map telling all the

(02:13):
stops that you can stop at.I'm looking at it right now. I'm
looking at it right now, andit starts identified there's a let me see,
there's Twin Sisters Creamery. That's you, that's up in London. O.
Twin Sisters Creamery is just a cheeseshop that gets their milk from us,

(02:35):
but they're completely independent of us.Then what do you Twin Brook Creamery?
See how I got confused? That'sokay, all right, So we've
got in Ferndale starting there Twin SistersCreamery. Then you can go to Apple
Farms Cheese, then the grays HarborFarms, then the Stemsma Creamery. Then

(02:59):
you're kind of going up north alittle bit further to yours twin Brook Creamery,
Acme Farms, Cheese Lens and DairyVan Delen Farms and Eagle Mill Farms
and each one of these. I'msure there's like so many different activities.
What are you doing up at yourplace twin Brook Creamery in London? Okay,

(03:22):
So what we do with our particularfarm here is we're going to give
people a complete tour of our processingfacility. We take them on a wagon
ride out into the fields and showthem where the cows are, where we
harvest crops for winter feeds, howwe apply our nutrients. We have pedal

(03:44):
tractors for the children, and theyhave to be real children, not just
adult children, okay, because we'vehad some issues with that before. It's
kind of cute, and they cansample all of our flavors of milk white
chocolates. They can purchase them righton the farm here if they want.

(04:08):
We're all set up for retail salesthat day. They can wander around here
and look at the history of ourfarm. This farm has been in our
family since nineteen ten. Wow,a lot of the buildings were built in
the nineteen twelve nineteen thirteen. Willtour some of them, like the big
old barns and how they're held togetherwith wooden pegs not even nails. Yeah,

(04:30):
that's cool. Just a lot ofhistory in addition to what actually goes
on day to day operation. Justto see the kind of the behind the
scenes of where people get their milkand cheese and yogurt and all that kind
of good stuff from Hey, oh, that is so cool. Larry.
I am talking with Larry's Stapp.He's the owner of twin Brook Creamery.

(04:54):
Way up in London, but worththe road trip. It's a big tour
going on the fifteenth. You cango from farm to creamery to cheesemaking.
It's called walk Come this way,wal come this way, choose your own
adventure. Farm tours behind the scenes, look into dairy farming. Let's talk
about being a dairy farmer and howvery cool this is and what do you

(05:18):
want the public to know most aboutwhere milk comes from? And you know
how cows are treated and how muchdairy farmers care about the environment. Would
you hit on a few of thosenotes please, I would love to.
Number one, there's probably no olderenvironmental profession than farming. And I can

(05:45):
state it this way. When Iwas a kid, I was raised on
my dairy farm, and I canremember how much grass and stuff that was
harvested and how much milk was givenby the cows, and they did the
best job they could. But everyyear we can enhance the health of the
cows with nutrition, We can enhancethe soil with proper soil nutrition, and

(06:11):
we can start producing more milk,more cheese per per acre per cow.
The sustainability of dairy is just incredible. I think that you can get these
actual figures from the dairy farmers atWashington, But the carbon footprint to produce

(06:34):
a gallon of milk has been reducedby sixty percent at least over the last
fifty years. I love it,and it is and it's just something that
nobody knows about, you know.I mean, so we want people to
come out and see what we do. You know, when you go to
the store and buy a gallon ofmilk, you don't just it doesn't just

(07:00):
happen. Like right now in thespring of the year, we are planning
enough feed for our animals, allof our girls, to last up till
the next spring, because if werun out of food in the middle of
the winter, there is no suchthing as a grocery store to go buy
more food for our cows on thecaws. What are you growing? It's

(07:21):
a long Mostly we all grow grassfor our cows, okay, but there's
different varieties of crops. There's corn, silage, there's some people will raise
peas. You know, it's allkinds of all kinds of refuges that are
raised and to feed the animals.But anyways, you have to plant now
in the spring of this year tolast till the spring of next year.

(07:44):
Things like that people need to understand. And the care of the animals.
You know, you don't just feedthem twice a day and milk them.
You know, there's as I statedearlier before we started, you know,
once a month we had the vetcome out and he goes through a completely
what we call her health check andmake sure all of our animals are healthy
and we're all taken care of theenvironmental aspect of it, as far as

(08:07):
the land and the production of theland. Now, the technology is such
that, you know, we dosoil analysis, and we do when we
apply the nutrients to the field.And when I say nutrients, that's what
some people think of as a wasteproduct from the cows. But it's actually

(08:28):
a very valuable commodity. You know, to make sure it goes on in
the right amounts and the grass uptakesit and keep a healthy soil. I
always kind of like to say that, you know, to have a healthy
milk, you need healthy cows,and to need healthy cows, you need
high quality feed. So what produceshigh quality feed is what some people think

(08:50):
as the waste product from an animal, which is the manure. You put
it on the fields. It makesfor healthy soil, which makes for healthy
feed, which makes for healthy seecows, which made for a high quality
product. See, it's just kindof a closed boop system. And of
course it just it just works wonderfuland cow comfort. You know, the

(09:11):
last thing you want is uncomfortable cowsand to abuse your land. Because there
was providing your income, your livelihood, and there was providing everything for the
consumer to buy. So yeah,you got to you've got to do your
best always and looking for the newesttechnologies and the newest research. You know,
that's why we got land grant universitiesalways working for us and things like

(09:33):
that. So, yeah, thisis great. Sound I love it.
Larry. Larry steps on the phonewith me, owner of twin Brook Creamery.
It's a big cow farm up inLondon. How many people you got
working up there? Well, there'sthree full time taking care of the cows
and all the baby calves, andthen there's another five or I think it's

(09:54):
maybe seven. I was at workin the processing plant and distribute to mal
and all that kind of stuff tothe stores and clean the bottles and all
that kind of good stuff. Sothat's so great. Now you're being aware
of the fact that we use glassbottles. Also, No, I can't
believe that I'm seeing this in mynotes that were sent to me, and

(10:15):
I was going to ask you thatthat is so cool. And they're returnable
and it's not plastic garbage, no, it's it's part of our sustainability.
So when you purchase our milk products, whether it's white milk or chocolate or
cream or strawberry or whatever, eggnogseasonally, of course. Then you bring

(10:39):
the bottle back to the store.They give you a refund on the credit
for the deposit. We bring allthe bottles back to our dairy farm.
We wash and sanitize and refill andjust start the whole process over again.
So yeah, we are not contributingto the landfill that way. No,
this is such great and it makesfor a better tasting just because there is

(11:01):
no taste alteration from a glass container. Yeah, oh, very good.
Absolutely. Hey, another question,you make your own chocolate milk up there,
that's exactly right, yum, andthe strawberry and the strawberry. We
buy the base ingredients, but weuse all of our own milk and our

(11:22):
own cream and all that stuff tomake it. Yep. And of course
the Seeson no leg nog. Hey, so sober November and December. I'm
getting it. Hey, are youselling in all the grocery stores in the
greater Seattle Western Washington area? Canwe find your product everywhere? Well,
you can find it everywhere, butnot every store has Okay. The best

(11:43):
way to find out the availability fora customer is you go to our website
and now there's a bar and you'llsee the word locations. Okay, you
click on that. You put yourzip code in there, and it'll tell
you all the stores within a Youcan choose it a five mile radius,
at ten mile radius, at twentyfive mile radius, but all in all
between. We're pretty much confined tothe state of Washington. We do it

(12:07):
a little bit in Portland, Oregon, but we have about two hundred and
fifty stores that retail our products forus. That's so great, everybody on
the phone. I have mister LarryStaff. He owns his own farm up
in London called Twinbrook Creamery, andtwin Brook Creamery is a big old part
of a fundage. The fifteenth ofJune, coming right up. Walk,

(12:31):
Come this way, choose your ownadventure on a farm a tour all the
behind the scenes looks into dairy farmingat eight different farms and creamery's and cheese
shops all up in Wacombe County,and you can get all the information at
walk come this way or yeah,wait here it is wadairy dot com.

(12:54):
Walk come this way, go toWashington Dairy wadairy dot com. I want
to ask you a few more questionsquestians. Larry I love that your farm is
so sustainable and that you're always improvingtechnology, which also helps the planet.
Well, how do you guys milkyour cows? These days, you're going
to have the opportunity to see acouple of farms there. Actually, I

(13:20):
think there's going to be three differentfarms on the tour that use completely automated
milking systems, or we call themrobotic milking systems, where the cows make
their own decision when they want toget milked, what time of the day,
what time of the night. Nohumans are involved in the application and

(13:41):
the preparation of the cow to getthe milk. It's all completely done by
automation. It is the most amazingthing you've ever seen. Yeah, and
you know, you know who's thebiggest benefactor of that, the cows.
You know, it reduces labor,reduces some work and all that stuff,
but you don't know how much thosecows enjoy and like that. It is

(14:07):
just the most amazing thing. Inever realized how intelligent cows were. I
mean, I always knew they weresmart as you get older and you see
more and more, but to watcha cow decide when they feel like getting
milked to go to their own littlestation, walk on in, get milked,
and leave again whenever they feel likeit. It is the most amazing

(14:28):
thing. Wow, how many timesa day does a cow want to be
milk? You know, it's interestingbecause this is the beauty of the whole
system. It can vary based uponhow much milk a cow gives. Let's
just say a cow gives you tengallons of milk a day, okay,
which is not unreal It can getmilked up to six times a day.

(14:52):
Wow. But then let's just saytowards the end of her annual lactation she's
down to one gallon maybe two gallonsa day gallons a day or okay.
Yeah. So when a cow towardsthe end of her year elactation is producing
less milk, the computer says,well, maybe you only need to get

(15:13):
today rather than the six times aday. It will just completely calculate that
all the time, and she givesless and less in milk. It'll milk
her less times per day. Shemight come in looking to be milk,
but the computer says, you comeback too soon, and it'll just let
her right back out of her littlestall again. Wow. Hey, Larry,
steps on the phone with me,Larry, how long have you had

(15:35):
this technology, this self robotic milking. How long have you had this robotic
milking? About eight years now?Yeah, and it was you know,
it's a pretty significant investment, Ibet. But it is the return,
the return alone on cow comfort isbig. It is huge, you know,

(16:02):
in addition to labor savings and allthe rest of the good stuff.
But one of the things that happenswith the robotic milking is it monitors that
cow twenty four hours a day,seven days a week. It counts how
many steps today she takes, Itcounts how many minutes today she chews her

(16:22):
cut. It keeps track exactly howmany pounds, how many how many pounds
of milk she gives per day.It keeps track of the butterfat content,
the protein content, the temperature,all those things. And it establishes an
average for every cow and when shedeviates from her average a certain percent,

(16:45):
and it calculates an average for everyindividual cow. And when a cow will
deviate a certain percent from her individualaverage, it will show up on a
report that you maybe better go checkthis cow out. And it can detect

(17:06):
things about a cow's health quicker thanyou can physically see them with your eye.
I love it. It is amazing. It is so what are you
doing all day now that the machineryis doing all work talking to people like
you on the radio? You knowwhat I love? I just love that
we know a little bit more aboutwhat it takes to get our milk,

(17:30):
our cream, our cheese all toour grocery store. Because us city slickers,
we just walk in there with ourwithout even thinking and just buy it.
And we're so grateful for it.But to know how much work it
is and all the new systems andsustainability projects that you're all working on to
get us that milk, we areso appreciative. Larry, let me ask

(17:51):
you. Do we get to tasteyour cows, milks and products when we're
up there? Yes, indeed youcan drink to your bellies here. We
won't stop you. Oh this isgreat, hey, Larry. This is
all part of a big event comingup on the fifteenth. It's called What
Come This Way like Watcome County Chooseyour Own Adventure Farm Tour, and it

(18:15):
offers behind the scenes looking to differentdairy farms like Larry's, which is the
twin the twin Brook Creamery up inLondon, and I'm just really thrilled to
be talking to you to find out, you know what it's what it really
is behind the scenes to take careof cows. One last question, how

(18:37):
many cows do you have? Wehave two and fifty cows. Oh my
yeah, the little brown jersey ones, the one with the big black eyelashes
that everybody falls in love with.That's great, I bet there's yeah.
And then wacome this Way tour.As as you said, there's a number

(18:57):
of farms and cheese on there.The time period is from ten am to
four pm. Okay, you cango to one, you can go to
two, you can go to allof them, whatever your heart chooses.
You're not tied to a set timeyou have to be at any particular farm.
And perfect activities for the little ones, right, absolutely, advocentivities you

(19:21):
bet, wagon rides, pedal,tractor racing, all kinds of good stuff.
Oh, Larry, this is great. Just go to waddairy dot com
forward slash w W come this wayjust look it up Washington, Darry,
You'll find it for sure. Hey, Larry, you have been just a
delight to talk to. I reallyappreciate all your insight into everything that you

(19:44):
do. It's been a great conversation. Well, we hope to see you
and lots of people from around thestate of Washington on our dairy on June
fifteenth. Right on, Larry Okay, take good care man, you bet
okay, Bye bye