Meet the Tresch Family

With almost 2,100 acres and 900 milking cows between their two dairies, Tresch Dairy in Petaluma is the largest of our dairy producers.  Joe and Kathy Tresch, owners of Tresch Dairy, are committed to organic dairy farming and sustainable farming practices.  Joe and Kathy are model stewards of the land and were named Sierra Club’s Environmentalist of the Year.
 
History
The Tresch family has been in the California dairy business since Joe’s family emigrated from Switzerland to California in the 1870s.  The family started their first California dairy in Cayucos Valley in 1880.  In 1898, the family moved up to Rio Vista in Northern California. Joe’s great-grandfather moved the dairy from Rio Vista to its current location in Petaluma.  After Joe's father passed away, Joe purchased the 320 acres from his step-mother in 1988 and leased an adjacent 1,189 acres.

It is this leased land that would bring Joe Tresch and Albert Straus together for the first time.  In 1988, the City of Santa Rosa attempted to acquire the leased land so they could pump wastewater into the entire valley and create a sewage reservoir.  Joe and Kathy chose to fight this plan and, after six long years, succeeded in saving the valley (this is when they won the Sierra Club award).  The Tresches then purchased the 1,189 acres and continued pasture-feeding their herd on this beautiful land.  It was during this struggle to save the land that Albert Straus met Joe and Kathy Tresch.  Albert was an active member of the Friends of Estero organization that worked with the Tresch family to prevent the creation of the treated-sewage wastewater reservoir.

Conversion to Organic
In 1996 the Tresches decided to convert their 1,189 acre dairy to organic.  At the time, the dairy was already following numerous organic farming practices.  Joe and Kathy had not been using any pesticides on the land and the cows were already pasture-fed.  They switched to organic feed and adopted all of the organic cow protocols to complete the transition and became only the second organic dairy in California at the time.  In the year 2000 Joe and Kathy decided to convert their 320-acre dairy to organic and sold their entire herd of conventional cows.

As demand for Straus products grew, the need for more organic milk led the Tresch and Straus families to reunite and begin working together.  We are thrilled to have such a high quality organic dairy in such close proximity to our creamery.
 
More About The Tresch Family
In addition to an organic dairy, the Tresch family also has a beautiful apple orchard on their ranch.  Kathy grows a number of unique varieties of apples and often sells them at the local farmers’ market.  The ranch also features a coastal grasslands area with a woodland riparian ecosystem and is home to over 500 plant species as well as Northwestern pond turtles, blue-tailed skink lizards, black-tail deer, a family of golden eagles, and an abundance of other animals.

Joe can be found atop the Straus Milk truck performing rope tricks every year during the Point Reyes Parade.  Back in 1967, Joe won the world-famous Wrist Wrestling Championships held in Petaluma.

The Tresch family hosts private tours at their dairy throughout the year.  For more information about scheduling a tour, please e-mail us at family@strausmilk.com.