The company picks up food waste from about 40 companies in the area - 13,000 to 15,000 tons a week. Today, we watched them unload a tractor trailer filled with cereal from the Kellogg's plant. Bill brought a box right out of the trailer - it was Frosted Flakes, no less - They'reeeeeeeee GREAT! He also purchases dough from a pizza company, stale bread, corn chips, potato chips and candy from the Nestle plant. But wait - there's more! He also purchases wet items such as peas, carrots and yes - corn. The corn was a recent purchase from a Frito plant that flooded from Hurricane Irene. Nothing goes to waste in these parts - at least not if a cow can eat it.
Bill uses a drying system for the wet materials, then grinds/blends them, and screens the materials. He sells to local feed companies. He once sold feed directly to farmers - mostly dairy farms in the area - but found it more profitable and less worrisome to sell to the feed mills who eventually sell it to farmers. His product is sold by the ton and is priced very close to corn.
It's a busy place which employs 40 people. Bill refers to it as "organized chaos" but to the casual observer, it appears to run like a well-oiled machine.
Baskin's does feed quite a bit of his own cattle, too - up to 1,000 head. He buys mostly dairy cows, some of them heifers that he breeds and then sells to an overseas market. Turkey and Russia are in great need of dairy cows so these heifers are shipped on a "cow cruise ship." During their three-week sea excursion, the cattle typically gain weight and leave the ship in better shape than they started. Sort of gives a new meaning to "ship shape," I guess.
Bill is passionate about what he does - both as a feed producer and a cattleman. His statement that "cattle are the perfect renewable resource" drew cheers and applause from our bus!
On the way to our next stop, we passed through ALABAMA, New York! Yep, there's a little village up here called Alabama. We saw the Alabama Inn, Alabama High School, Alabama Fire Department and the Alabama Cemetery. And of course we are affectionally known as the "Alabama Tour Group".
As a side note, we have traveled through or close to Auburn, Geneva, Elba and now Alabama.
Our next stop - and our lunch- was at SK Herefords in Medina, NY, owned by David Schubel and Philip Keppler, two of the nicest fellas you'll ever want to meet. They fed us hamburgers made from farm-raised beef, hot dogs, baked beans, pasta salad, fruit salad and apple crisp with ice cream. What a spread!
David and Philip are cattlemen first and foremost, but also are true environmentalists. They work closely with their local NRCS office to protect their soil and water on their farm.
"Our soils here are relatively new, only 12,000 years old, formed by the glaciers," Philip said. "So we do everything we can to protect it."
SK has a tight 60-day calving season that runs from March through April. They have both a registered Hereford herd and commercial cattle. Their horned Hereford bulls are really nice and were raised there on the farm (they are dehorned). Their angus bulls are top notch and offer some terrific genetics as well. SK also operates a small feedlot and utilizes a Temple Grandin design for handling their cows - creating less stress for their animals. The farm also has zero tolerance for ill-tempered animals.
Philip and David also are God-fearing men - they appreciated the fact we said the blessing before leaving the bus to join them for lunch. They truly are good stewards of the land and just downright good folks.
An interesting note: The reason most farms up here DON'T have barbed wired fencing or woven wire fence is because the snowfall weighs down the fence, and it eventually causes it to sag. The high-tensile wire we've seen at most every farm doesn't have that problem and has heavy-duty springs to help keep it tight. Who knew?
Our final stop of the day was at Oak Orchard Dairy in Elba, NY. (Elba - another south Alabama town - I would have never guessed!)
The farm is owned by the Norton brothers. Curt Norton manages the diary and his brother Chris manages the buildings and maintenance. Their brother Dean is president of New York Farm Bureau. Another employee, Jonathan Taylor, is a district director for NYFB. Curt and Jonathan were great tour hosts. Our group split up and while some toured the barns, others toured the milking parlor where they milk up to 1,000 head a day. The farm has a parallel double-20 parlor milking 40 cows at the time. The set up allows one man to milk 500 cows right by himself. Amazingly efficient, these dairy farmers. And hard workers - milking two or three times a day, 365 days a year, it's got to be the hardest job in agriculture, day-in and day-out.
Find Oak Orchards on Facebook. Really impressive dairy.
As we head back to Rochester, about a 45-minute drive or so, we have dinner on our own tonight and we're all ready for our trip tomorrow to another vineyard, a windshield tour of Lake Ontario then we're off to Niagara Falls! It is supposed to be slightly chilly tomorrow but we're all excited. Lynn Cook of Destinations has a great day planned - including a boat ride under the falls!
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