Homestead Creamery has a plan to urge customers wary of dairy to try drinking milk again.
A few years after launching its first line of so-called A2A2 milk, thought by some to be easier to digest, the Franklin County company is going all in. Each of the dairies it works with has fully transitioned its herd to cattle with the A2A2 gene.
It wonât change the taste or the nutritional value of the product, but it could draw in new customers who in the past have experienced digestive discomfort after drinking milk.
âWe started getting testimony where A2A2 milk really made a difference. Weâve been reading some science, and we believed it,â said David Bower, co-owner of Homestead Creamery and the owner of a dairy that provides some of its milk.
The decline in the number of dairy farms has slowed, but the losses are not likely to be made up soon, according to Eric Paulson, vice president and treasurer of the Virginia State Dairymenâs Association.
âIt has stabilized a lot,â Paulson said. âEven in the pandemic, 2020 was still better than 2019 was.â
Virginia lost one dairy farm every two weeks during the later parts of 2019, while in the middle of the year the commonwealth was losing two dairy farms a week on average, according to previously provided data. Since 2014, dairy farmers have been battered by low prices resulting from decreasing demand for liquid milk.