Sustainable Choices

Doing Business Right

Sustainability is a founding principle and core value of Straus Family Creamery. Organic farming practices are the basis of our sustainability efforts. These practices promote good land stewardship, animal welfare and help sustain family farms and communities. These practices are essential to help support responsible farming for future generations.

At Straus, we continually look for ways to improve our sustainable practices so we can build a better future. This has translated into a wide range of sustainable practices designed to protect organic integrity, reduce our carbon footprint, preserve natural resources, conserve biodiversity, enhance soil, and water quality, support family farms and remain active in our communities and our regional food system.

Sustainability Reporting

At Straus, we publish an annual Sustainability Report to a public audience through the Sustainable Food Trade Association. Our goal is to inspire other businesses in farming and food production to replicate environmental stewardship practices in their communities. The report captures our progress in agricultural innovation, climate change mitigation, and the advancement of our mission to help sustain family farms while protecting the planet, local economies, and the people who live and work in the community.

2019 Sustainability Report

Since our origins in 1994, Straus has bottled family farm certified Organic Cream-Top Milk in reusable glass bottles.

Resilient Packaging: Our Steadfast Commitment to Reusable Glass Milk Bottles

Since our origins in 1994, Straus has bottled family farm certified Organic Cream-Top Milk in reusable glass bottles. Each glass bottle has a $2.00 deposit that is refunded when the rinsed bottle is returned to the store. The bottles are then returned to the Creamery, washed, sanitized, and reused an average of five times before re-entering the recycling stream. The bottles are made with up to 30% recycled glass.

Straus Family Creamery has a return rate of more than 80% of our bottles. The impact on our environment is profound as it keeps waste out of landfills and oceans. In fact, consumers who purchase our reusable glass bottles help keep approximately 500,000 pounds of milk containers and plastic out of the landfill each year. And that’s just one advantage of glass bottles. Milk poured from glass containers simply tastes better. The full, rich flavor of our organic milk and cream products are best preserved in glass because glass is inert and doesn’t chemically interact with any ingredients.

Since water is perhaps our most valuable natural resource, we employ a system that allows us to reuse all the Creamery water at the Straus Dairy Farm instead of letting all the water go down the drain.

Water Conservation

Making organic dairy products and keeping equipment clean, while also rinsing and sanitizing reusable glass bottles, requires a great deal of water. Since water is perhaps our most valuable natural resource, we employ a system that allows us to reuse all the Creamery water at the Creamery and Straus Dairy Farm instead of letting all the water go down the drain.

Every gallon of water the Creamery uses shares the same journey. Fresh water and “cow water” (water filtered from cow’s milk through reverse osmosis) is primarily used for the daily cleaning and sanitizing of equipment at the Creamery. The waste water from the Creamery is captured and transported a short distance to the Straus Dairy Farm, where it’s eventually separated for the methane digester (a big pond, covered with an enormous tarp, that generates energy to power the farm.) And it’s either used for irrigation or as flush water for the barns.

Keeping Our Water Clean

At Straus Family Creamery, we continually revise our production processes and implement new systems to minimize negative environmental impacts. Because we use our waste water to irrigate the Straus Dairy Farm’s pastures, we do everything we can to ensure the food-making processes at the Creamery have a positive impact on the land. For example, we use potassium-based cleaning agents to avoid high concentrations of sodium in the water, because high levels of sodium are toxic to plants.

The Straus commitment to a carbon-free business includes energy efficient LED lighting, efficient cooling equipment, and a commitment to achieve efficiency through advanced equipment design and the use of smart controls and monitors.

Carbon-Free Energy

At the Creamery, Straus purchases 100% renewable electricity from non-polluting, Green-e Energy certified wind and solar power sources in California through our partnership with Marin Clean Energy’s Deep Green Renewable Program. Our transition to renewable energy immediately decreased our operational greenhouse gas footprint by 20%.

Straus offers plug-in electric vehicle (EV) charging stations at the Creamery and office for its employees.

Electric Vehicles

Straus offers plug-in electric vehicle (EV) charging stations at the Creamery and office for its employees. As an early adopter of electric cars, we continue to do our part by advancing our fleet into EV or low-carbon fuel trucks as much as possible to replace gas-powered transportation.