My original dream was to milk two jersey cows, make the world's most expensive ice cream, and market it as "the world's most expensive ice cream". I thought I had everything that I needed until I asked my milk inspector and my county extension agent to come and "bless" my project. Instead of blessing my project, they handed me the Federal Pasteurized Milk Ordinance - all 380 pages. We then went looking for equipment that met those requirements and the cheapest system we could find at that time was almost a quarter of a million dollars. I didn't have the quarter of a million dollars and the equipment that we found was so large that the milk from our two cows would spoil before we reached the minimum processing capacity.

I became frustrated and decided to just build it myself. The first thing I built was a trailer, 12 feet x 50 feet, that included a two stall cow milking parlor, a milk house, a bathroom with shower, an office with lab, an equipment room, a storage room, a processing room and a retail sales area. Then I started working on the pasteurizer. My milk inspector was most helpful and we went back and forth considering many different design ideas. Finally I finished the first unit. He told one of his clients running a small goat dairy about it, and they bought it from me. So I built another one and another of his clients bought that one. At that point I realized that there were many other people needing a small pasteurizing system, and we now have over 300 systems installed in 38 states and ten countries outside the U.S. For an accidental business, we are having a lot of fun.

We are still a very small business: just me, my wife, and our son-in-law.

Thanks for considering MicroDairy Designs' equipment for your processing needs,
and have an excellent day!

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