Story

In the late 1970s, after completing his Bachelor’s degree in Dairy Sciences at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, Albert Straus returned to his family’s dairy farm.

Albert took over the management of the dairy farm with his father and quickly realized that innovative solutions were needed to secure the future of family farming in California and to maintain responsible stewardship of the land.

The family had stopped using herbicides on the farm in the mid-1970s, and in the early 1980s, Albert replaced tilling fields, used to grow silage, with a no-till method of planting, to prevent soil erosion and reduce fuel consumption. He also stopped using chemical fertilizers (which had been minimal for decades) in the mid-1980s.

To bring food waste back into the system for cows, Albert sourced cow feeds from creative and unusual places, such as orange peel and pulp from a family-owned fresh orange juice factory in San Francisco, and rice sake waste from a local distillery.

Over the course of several decades, a manure wastewater pond system was implemented and improved beyond state and federal requirements. This enabled the dairy to use manure solids to be naturally composted and used as fertilizer, and to turn manure liquids back into nutrient-rich water for irrigation of pastures.

Innovative farming practices alone could not solve the plight of small family farms in California. To help solve the economic problems family dairies increasingly faced, Albert took a radical step — he converted the family farm to organic and founded Straus Family Creamery, the first 100% certified organic creamery in the country. These bold actions effectively created the first pasture-to-bottle infrastructure for organic milk.

Under his own label, Albert Straus was able to create dairy products to his liking using his own organic milk — sustainably-made, wholesome dairy products of highest quality with organic milk from his family’s farm, bottled in reusable, recyclable glass bottles.

His certified organic milk was non-homogenized, with the cream rising naturally to the top. Bottling the organic milk in reusable glass bottles was Straus’ idea from the start, and it’s still bottled that way to this day.

Of course, the certified organic milk produced at the Straus Dairy Farm isn’t enough to make all the organic dairy products. To sustain the integrity of the organic process and keep the approximate ratio of one cow per acre of land, Albert wouldn’t add any more cows to his herd. Straus Family Creamery buys certified organic, Non-GMO Project Verified milk from eleven other organic, local family farms: the two Tresch Family Dairy Farms, Hughes Family Dairy, Correia Family Dairy, Brazil Family Farm, Silacci Dairy, Mendoza Dairy, Cypress Lane Ranch, Silva Family Dairy, Drakes View Dairy, and JJ’s Family Dairy.

Today, nearly 90% of the dairy farms in Marin and Sonoma Counties in Northern California are certified organic. Straus Family Creamery continues to make business decisions based on its mission to help sustain family farms, revitalize rural communities, and protect the environment.