In the chocolate off-season, I occasionally share stories of things associated with my chocolates—and the people behind them. Here’s a special one.
Many of my chocolates are made with a ganache filling, a smooth emulsion of chocolate couverture and a liquid. While ganache can be made with other liquids, the classic ingredient is cream.
Cream can be picked up in most any grocery store, I can do better. I’m fortunate to be a couple miles from a family-run dairy farm and creamery.
Last week I spent some time asking Jamie Robertson about his family and operating Contoocook Creamery at Bohanan Farm. It’s a remarkable story of constant adaptation, a love of the land, and a love of milking cows.
Jamie Robertson, is the co-owner of Bohanan Farm along with his wife Heather, and their three sons, Nate, Bram, and Si Robertson. (Photo: Bohanan Farm)
Jamie makes clear from the start: “It's my wife Heather’s family. Her great-grandfather Lester Bohanan bought the land in 1907. He ran horses, like a modern-day log-truck driver. He had a team of horses that worked in the woods. And he worked for the railroad with his horses. He bought the farm so he could feed his horses and then, of course, had cows, pigs, and chickens. What they didn't eat, they sold in town. And that's kind of the story of New England farms.
“Lester had three children, two sons and a daughter. Both sons, Ivan and Ashton went to UNH and studied agriculture. Ivan had graduated and was working down on Cape Cod, and his dad sent him a letter saying that his mother wanted to move into town, and if he didn't want to come back and farm, they were gonna sell the land. And so, Ivan came home to run the farm, and then Ash joined after he graduated."
Lester and Blanche Bohanan (seated) with their sons Ivan and Ash, daughter Betty, and their grandchildren. (Photo: Bohanan Farm)
“Ivan was extremely progressive, part of a generation that changed the world. When he was a kid, he used to take a horse and buggy to school, and he would drop off milk cans on the train siding, and the train would pick them up and take them into the Concord dairy. But they only had one or two cows then. When Ivan came back after college, he really made it a dairy farm and grew it from just a handful of cows to 35 or 40.”
Between the 1930s and the early 50s, Ivan switched from milk cans to bulk milk in refrigerated trucks, became an early adopter of artificial insemination for his cows, and of crop protectants, and manure management. Jamie noted “There was a whole group of farms that were all the same age, that were just grabbing all the technology they could get and really changing how we feed people.”
Bohanan Farm, over 400 acres along the Contoocook River in Hopkinton, NH. (Photo: Bohanan Farm)
Over the years, the third generation, Heather’s parents, Glenn and Adele Bohanan, did what dairy farmers do, grow the herd and constantly innovate. Jamie, who grew up on a New Hampshire chicken farm, had known the Bohanans his whole life. When he and Heather Bohanan married and came back to the farm in 1990, they were milking about 100 cows.
In the years that followed, they grew the herd to 220-250 cows to make it financially feasible for Jamie and Heather to join in. Jamie recalls “We stayed at that number for 10 years … until it stopped working. We needed to probably double in size to make selling wholesale milk work and we didn't have the land to do that, and we'd have to double again.”
The cows of Bohanan Farm produce an average of 80 pounds of milk a day. (Photo: Dotty Holcomb Doherty)
What to do? And here is an example of the continuing story of inflection points and decisions made from a combination of business sense, love of the land, and the importance of family.
I knew the family had placed a conservation easement on the farm, protecting it permanently from development, and asked how important that was. “Huge,” Jamie replied. “I hadn't been a big supporter of conservation easements on farms. I thought really good agricultural land conserved itself, because that was its value. We're business people, of course, and we never ever wanted to see anything built on the land, other than maybe a house for us.
“But what happened was, Heather and I had just taken the farm over. We bought her mom out in 2006, and her dad out in 2007. And if you remember, the world kind of crashed in early 2009. And we had no equity. We had just barely finished building the farm from 100 cows to 250, and then had bought out our partners. and hadn't really started to pay down debt yet. And, milk prices went back to 1980 levels, and fuel was 5 bucks a gallon, and grain was through the roof, and it was apparent the value of the ag land wasn't enough to protect the farm at that point.
“We had three boys that were young, but they certainly had an interest in wanting to come back. So we needed to do something, and we could have cut off a few house lots. And that would have been fine. But we were afraid that once you did that, it was like ‘maybe we'll cut off a house lot for this or that.’ And, really, none of the family wanted to do that.”
Jamie and Heather Robertson's three sons, Si, Bram, and Nate, co-owners of Bohanan Farm. Over 400 acres of the farm is protected through a conservation easement held by a local land trust. (Photo: Bohanan Farm)
“We all had a deep connection to the land, and it's been farmed since Native Americans farmed it here. And it's been open to the public. Something needed to be done, and selling a conservation easement was the best thing to do to right the ship. It worked. And that allowed the next steps to unfold and the farm to survive. We use the value of the development sold away permanently through the conservation easement to finance a farm every single day.”
The decision soon led to the next inflection point and provided the ability to respond. Jamie and Heather wanted to make it possible for their three sons to return to the farm. “But doing wholesale milk, to support four families—us and our three sons and their families—we'd need between 800 and 1,200 cows to make that work.
“So we looked at direct marketing and decided to build a milk plant. And that's what we did to bring our three children back and they're all partners with us now.
”With the milk plant, we cut way back on cows, to half the herd we had before. The farm works a lot better at that size and we're able to make it work, to make a living for everybody. And now we can do it on around one tenth the number of cows we’d need if we were trying to do still sell milk wholesale.”
Today, Bohanan farm milks about 130 cows twice a day. Collectively, they consume 13 tons of feed daily. Their diet is created by a dairy nutritionist. Samples of the farm's grass and corn silage—which makes up about 50% of the cows’ diet—go to a laboratory to be analyzed for protein, energy and mineral content. (Photo: Dotty Holcomb Doherty)
Then I asked Jamie about bottling milk in glass bottles and that led to understanding the next turning point.
“For close to 10 years after starting our milk plant, we were bottling all our milk in glass. And we were really struggling. We were selling milk retail in glass, but only 30 to 50 cows worth, out of over a hundred cows. We were still selling the rest of the milk wholesale at half the price.”
Bottling milk only in glass bottles limited the sales of the farm's milk as some larger stores wouldn't handle the glass bottles. (Photo: Bohanan Farm)
“Then in 2020, COVID hit, the governor announced no one could use recyclable bags anymore. I heard that, and I knew our glass bottles were gonna be next. When we bought our bottle filler, we bought parts to do plastic jugs but had never used them. I had recently priced out a capper—the only additional thing we would need if we were going to bottle in plastic—but decided the money wasn't in the checkbook. Then I heard the governor’s announcement, and I called a guy in Connecticut selling a capper and headed down with a check from my sister.
“I pulled out of Connecticut just before they shut down travel because of COVID, and we switched from glass to plastic within about five days.
“It was just a game changer, unfortunately, as I prefer glass. Within three months we were processing 100 cows’ worth of milk and we stopped doing wholesale altogether, because COVID stopped that too. But we picked up a lot of grocery stores when we could supply in plastic; it went through the roof. So now our glass bottling is about 10% of total and going to the smaller stores and farm markets. It gives them a chance to put a different price point on it than the grocery stores.
“We really struggled with making the switch, but we made it at the right time. We thought just before COVID that we probably weren't going to survive. We were really, really scared, and didn't know how we were going to keep everything rolling. And unlike a lot of businesses, COVID was what changed us and worked for us.”
Bottling milk in plastic jugs made a huge financial difference for the farm, as it opened access to many more stores. (Photo: Dotty Holcomb Doherty)
I asked if it was a surprise that all three sons—the fifth generation—came back to the farm.
“I always used to joke that we needed a daughter, because it was Heather who came back, you know? But our sons all had a deep interest and love for the farm. We tried not to push them into it, but I’m sure we did a little. It's surprising that all three decided to come back. We've tried to make it so that they all have their own space. They all have something that they're in charge of, but everybody works together and supports each other.”
Heather and Jamie Robertson's three sons and Megan, Si's wife. (Photos: Bohanan Farm)
So what is the routine of a small dairy farm and creamery? Jamie began by describing how much milk they produce, only in the way a dairy farmer would.
“We get about 8,000 pounds of milk a day from about 100 cows. To put it another way, that’s about 16,000 eight ounce servings a day. On average, a cow is making about 80 pounds of milk every day. If you stop and think about that, that's a cow reproducing her own weight in less than a month. They're pretty efficient critters.”
To anyone unfamiliar with the details of dairy farming, like me, the routine of the cows and of the farmers dedicated to their care is remarkable. (Photo: Dotty Holcomb Doherty)
“The first person comes in to start cleaning by 4:30 in the morning, and then the milkers come in, usually they're getting started milking about 5 o'clock. The person that's feeding cows comes in about 6 o'clock, and then the morning milking is done by 8 o'clock, usually, The barn's cleaned, and the cows are fed by 10. Then you head out into the field, or do whatever chores the farm needs done. Then, around 3:30 in the afternoon, you start setting up to milk again and are usually done about 7 at night.”
The milk plant, which is right on the farm, is smaller than one might think of given the term, but it's processing 16,000 to 24,000 pounds of milk every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. (Photo: Dotty Holcomb Doherty)
“The milk plant kind of runs separate from the farm. We process milk Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Monday's a long day, because we have an extra day's worth of milk from the weekend. Somebody comes in and gets started setting up the plant about 4:30 in the morning. It takes a few hours to get set up. We try and get processing milk and getting it in bottles by 9 o'clock in the morning. On Mondays, we're hopefully out by 7:00 at night, if everything goes well. Wednesday's a little shorter; sometimes we can be out before 5, but lots of times it's 5 or 6. And then Friday is kind of a half day, done bottling by 2:00 or 3:00. But then, my sister-in-law is there another hour or two finishing cleaning out.
“For the most part, we're pasteurizing homogenized milk. We do whole milk, 1%, half and half for white milks. And then, depending on how much milk we have, we do chocolate, coffee, strawberry, blueberry, maple during sugaring season, and eggnog at Christmas. You can tell when we're really short on milk because we're just doing white milk and chocolate.”
Sarah Bohanan (Heather's sister) overseeing the bottling of 1% milk, a large portion of which is sold to the New Hampshire Food Bank, which provides food to food pantries, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, children’s programs, and senior centers throughout the state. (Photo: Dotty Holcomb Doherty)
“We deliver within a little over a two-hour radius. Almost 85% of New Hampshire's population is in four southern counties and those were all within about an hour of us. We have 30 Hannafords, a pretty big grocery chain, 20 Market Baskets, and then about another 120 small everything else.”
Contoocook Creamery milk at the most prominent level in a Market Basket grocery store. (Photo: Bohanan Farm)
You may notice Jamie makes no mention of bottling or selling cream. I was never quite sure why that was the case. Now I know.
“We don't sell it commercially because it is really hard to wash out of the equipment! And it would change our whole process.
“When you run the milk through the bottler, you start with your low fat, then you go to your whole milk, and then your half and half, and then you do your flavors. You run your light flavors like a blueberry or a strawberry, and then you follow that with a coffee or a chocolate. That way the stronger flavors overpower the preceding one.
“We would have to do cream after the half and half and before the flavors. But then we’d have to wash everything before continuing on. Otherwise, you can just kind of keep going. And, and we don't have enough cream to make it worthwhile, because most of it stays in the half and half and whole milk.”
Jamie explaining the cream separator to me. It's a centrifuge that spins at 15,000 RPM and speeds up gravity to separate the cream the cream from the milk. Skim milk goes through one pipe into the tanks and then the bottler. Cream comes out another. (Photo: Dotty Holcomb Doherty)
“We do pull out cream when we’re making the 1% milk, and we sell a lot of 1% to the New Hampshire Food Bank. But we do it with a cream separator—a centrifuge—which is a lot easier to clean, and cream comes out of one end and 1% milk comes out of the other end. We save the cream up until Fridays and then we'll run it through the system first thing in the morning, and then we can rinse it, and get it out of the system. And run it in the bagger, because it's easier than the bottler. That's why I tell you to pick up cream for your chocolates on Friday!
“In the summertime, we use cream for ice cream mix which we sell to a few ice cream makers. Around Christmas we use a lot of it in our eggnog.”
This is pure cream flowing out of the separator into a ten gallon milk can. The cans of cream are headed to a New Hampshire ice cream shop that makes their own ice cream mix. I'd love to pick up the cream I use for chocolates in cans like these, but ten gallons is about four times what I use for a single chocolate collection! (Photo: Dotty Holcomb Doherty)
When I’m buying ingredients for my chocolates, I’m always trying to find ones grown, picked, or made by small farm-holders. But many of us have read for years about the loss of small farms, in general, and dairy farms, in particular, and I asked Jamie about that.
“You know, other farms are doing other things. One of the more unique ones these days is that both Heather and I worked on the farm full-time. Lots of times, there's a spouse that works off the farm for health insurance and things like that, which is how some of the smaller farms make it work. And, other ones grow sweet corn, a number of things that used to work, like you used to sell genetics. But a lot of smaller farms have really good genetic cows, and that market's not there anymore. The industry's changed.
“Pre-1985, when there was a government buyout of dairy farms, every town had a farm or two. There were 450 dairy farms in New Hampshire then. When Heather and I came back from college in 1990 it was down to 290 dairy farms. Today there are only about 70. A good-sized one shut down just last week.”
Heather Bohanan Robertson has worked full-time on the farm since she and Jamie came back from college in 1990. (Photo: Bohanan Farm)
The Bohanan-Robertson family has navigated the challenges for five generations and carries on. I asked Jamie if it feels different to be processing your own milk and having a recognizable brand?
“Yeah, I'm certainly proud of the brand. To be honest, we process milk so we can milk cows, and if we could milk cows without processing milk, that's what we'd be doing. I do like delivering milk though. I grew up delivering eggs with my dad and now go to some of the same stores I did back then.
“The local foods movement has benefitted us. Long ago I was trying to convince the co-op we used to sell our wholesale milk to get on board with local branding and marketing, but they weren’t willing, even when over 20 years ago all three major news magazines had cover stories on local foods.
“Processing our own milk under our own brand might not work for everybody, but it has for us. I don't know exactly what the percentage of the population is that’s willing to pay a bit more for local milk, but it adds up.
“You know, it's really hard as a commercial dairy person. We took so much pride in making cheap food, the cheapest food in the world. That was hard to get over. We kind of want to be an Audi in the market, you know? We don't need to be a Ferrari. We tried being a Ford, but that didn't work for us.
“We want to be that Audi that's got a little bit of name recognition. People know they're paying a little bit more for it, but they're happy to do that, so they can say that they're drinking our milk. And we're in a spot where there's enough people, so that we make that happen and it works.”
What makes the folks at Bohanan Farm happy? Taking care of these beautiful animals so they can feed people. (Photo: Dotty Holcomb Doherty)
So what gives Jamie the most happiness?
“I love to feed people. That’s just kind of neat. The family -- I have my own family working here. Most of the time, that's really happy. And doing something that people tell you you can't do is kind of fun.”
Most heavy cream you can buy in grocery stores—even organic cream—is ultra-pasteurized, lasts up to three months unopened, and includes stabilizers like guar gum. That makes it such a privilege to be able to text Jamie a week before I need cream and then drive five minutes over to the farm to pick up a couple of gallons of it. It could not possibly be fresher or richer. And I know exactly where it came from.
That also means a bit of all these chocolates contributes to sustaining a small family farm, in the same way that using cacao grown by small farm-holders in Bolivia or Ecuador or another cacao-producing region does. It gives greater meaning to my work creating these chocolate collections.
Chatting with Jamie in the milk plant -- and me, mostly trying to stay out of the way. (Photo: Dotty Holcomb Doherty)
Thanks for reading.