Farmer hoping to bottle, sell his dairy farm’s milk

A dairy farmer southwest of Modesto plans to bottle some of his own milk for direct sale to customers.

The Stanislaus County Planning Commission on Thursday evening will consider a permit for Rick Nutcher’s farm on Grayson Road, west of Jennings Road.

It would produce up to 3,000 gallons of milk a day in a bottling plant installed in a former storage building. The process includes pasteurization and homogenation and would have to meet state and federal standards.

It would be the only direct-to-consumer milk plant in the Northern San Joaquin Valley. A few operate in the southern part of the region, but almost all of the area’s fluid milk and other dairy processing is at large plants and distributed through stores and other channels.

Nutcher plans to sell the product in returnable glass bottles, a common practice in the industry until the 1970s. He will continue to sell some of his milk to Hilmar Cheese Co.

The county planning staff recommends approval of the project, noting that it fits with the goal of promoting appropriate businesses in agricultural zones. The commission’s vote will be final unless appealed to the county Board of Supervisors.

This will be the second time this spring that the commission has considered an unusual request from a dairy farm. Lucas Dairy, west of Turlock, won permission for a microbrewery that will get all of its hops and some of its grain from the farm.

This story was originally published May 20, 2015 at 6:08 PM with the headline "Farmer hoping to bottle, sell his dairy farm’s milk."