Dan Smyth and Megan Hastings
Six years ago, I wrote an article about Hastings Farm – click here. It was based on an email interview with pictures from their Facebook page. At that time, Megan and her sister, Lauren were just beginning to change the direction of their family’s dairy farm. Megan had been bottling milk and making yogurt for a year and Lauren was beginning to raise beef cattle and sell the meat.
Lauren Hastings
A lot has changed since then. Megan had met Dan Smyth (now her husband) and together they had expanded the creamery to include all kinds of dairy products – 9 flavors of yogurt (their best sellers), fresh ricotta, and a wide variety of cheeses (available seasonally) – Cheddar, Havarti, Gouda, Caerphilly, and Blue.
This time, I was able to actually go to the farm and taste some of their products. I didn’t sample all their flavors of Greek-style yogurt, but the coffee yogurt completely bowled me over. I’m still thinking about it and wondering when I can get back there. I believe it would win any competition and I hope they enter it someday. According to Dan, it has a lot to do with the percentage of milkfat – a whopping 4.2%!
I also brought home some lemon and plain yogurt and they were fabulous. I took the picture below to show you the line of whey around the outer edge of the lemon yogurt which floated in it like a large, solid curd. It was sweet and tart and creamy – oh, yeah!
Dan and Megan make the products, package them and deliver them. 90% of their business is wholesale.
Dan had grown up on a dairy farm (Trinity Farm) in Enfield, CT. He had gone to college in South Dakota to study Dairy Manufacturing with the goal of coming back and making cheese at Trinity. But, when he returned, he met Megan and became her partner in the Hastings creamery.
The Tour
It’s a beautiful farm with over 270 acres of land.
The cows
30% of the cows are Jerseys and 70% Holsteins.
The calf barn
The Milking Robot
This is an amazing piece of equipment! The cows volunteer to enter it (there is a treat involved) and the robot finds their teats, cleans them, milks the cows and sends them on their way. Each cow has been tagged with a number, so the robot is able to determine the amount of treat they get and actually portion that out before the milking. The robot collects data about the health of each cow and the amount of milk they are producing. So, for example, the cow that was in the robot when I was there gives an average of 81.6 pounds per week.
The cows love it and some of them go into it more than twice a day. Curiously, they acquiesce to one particular cow by letting her go to the front of the line whenever she wants to.
The Milk
How’s this for a milk tank? It holds 1500 gallons! Only 14% of it is used to make the bottled milk, cheese and yogurt they sell.
The Make Room
This is a light, airy room with plenty of room to work. Most of the equipment was either made for them by friends or purchased used. (BTW – If you’re looking for used equipment, check out our free Classified Ads – https://www.cheesemaking.com/resources/classified-ads.html)
This pasteurizer holds 150 gallons of milk.
This 200 gallon tank is used for bottling the milk.
This handmade press holds 12 wheels.
This is another handmade piece of equipment, used to strain the yogurt, making it Greek-style.
The shrink wrapper. The cheese is aged with a natural rind, but, when it is cut up for sale, it’s shrink wrapped.
Sheets of shrink wrap
The yogurt shelves in this cooler are almost bare because they can barely keep up with the demand.
The Store
I can’t even begin to tell you all the products they sell in their store! Suffice it to say, there is meat, all kinds of dairy products, honey, jams, maple syrup, eggs and produce. I stocked up with as much as I could because the prices were good and everything looked great. I took a couple of chuck roasts home and they were the best I have ever tasted, so, I’ll be going back as soon as I can!
