Modesto dairy has been bottling fresh milk for 10 years. What makes it ‘better’?
It’s been a decade since Rick Nutcher decided he wanted to give consumers the closest experience to drinking milk straight from a cow that he could.
The Modesto dairyman launched Nutcher Milk Co. on his Grayson Road farm in 2015. After receiving permission from the state and the county, he converted a former storage building into a bottling plant and began producing on June 9 of that year.
“My thing was, how can I get to the store as close to what I get to enjoy straight out the tank — and be legal,” Nutcher said. “So that’s kind of where I came up with this idea.”
Nutcher’s dairy houses around 800 milking cows — one building over from where their milk is produced.
Processing the milk on the dairy is what separates Nutcher Milk Co. from industrial-scale companies. Here’s how it works.
Bottling on site allows Nutcher Milk to be as fresh as possible
When the cows get milked, their milk travels through pipes to the next room over.
As soon as it gets to the that room, it goes through a filter and then goes through a chiller. The process takes about three minutes.
A cow’s body temperature is around 101 degrees, so its milk comes out about 98 degrees, Nutcher said. As soon as the pump is turned on, the milk is being chilled to 38 to 40 degrees, which Nutcher says is above Grade A standard.
Grade A standard says the raw milk has to be below 50 degrees within four hours of the start of milking. Because the milk is chilled immediately after it’s released from the cow on Nutcher’s dairy, bacteria growth is minimal.
After it’s chilled, the milk is pumped to the processing room 10 feet away, where it is pasteurized, homogenized and then bottled. Pasteurizing kills the bacteria, and homogenizing prevents the cream from separating.
Most milk produced at much larger facilities is three days old before it’s bottled, Nutcher said. Being a small, on-site operation eliminates that time — Nutcher Milk goes from the cow’s udder to the bottle within a few hours.
Nutcher opened his dairy in November 2000. Before he began bottling, he sold his milk to Hilmar Cheese Co. — and still does. But today, Nutcher bottles around 25% of his milk and Hilmar Cheese gets the rest.
The dairy produces between 2,000 and 3,000 gallons of milk daily.
Glass bottles are a selling point for Nutcher Milk
Nutcher Milk is sold in glass bottles. There are quart and half-gallon sizes.
He wanted to do glass bottles partly for the nostalgia of it, Nutcher previously told The Bee, and also because glass bottles weren’t commonly being sold in stores.
“If you’re going to do something and you want to make it better, you’ve got to be different,” he said during a tour on Wednesday.
While the bottles make a good sales pitch for Nutcher, they also keep him honest.
The milk from his cows is checked for imperfections like blood cells. The presence of blood cells doesn’t make the milk bad, Nutcher said, but “when you’re in a glass bottle, you have to be perfect.”
“It’s a neat bottle, you know?” he said. “And then my job is to make what’s in it” good enough to keep customers coming back.
Nutcher Milk customers pay a $2.50 deposit for the bottle. The rinsed bottle can be returned to the store where purchased for a $2.50 refund.
Of course, the buyer does not have to return the bottle. “My rule is: You bought it, it’s yours until you don’t want it anymore,” Nutcher said.
When he makes his weekly deliveries to local grocery stores, he also picks up the returned bottles and pays the stores for what they refunded to customers.
He said he finds that most customers return the bottles. “If we’re dropping off 250 bottles, we’re picking up 190,” Nutcher said.
The bottles get examined, washed, sanitized and refilled at the creamery.
Nutcher purchased a truckload of half-gallon 10th-anniversary bottles and a truckload of quart ones. They’ll stay in circulation until they sell out, he said.
Where is Nutcher Milk sold?
Nutcher Milk Co. sells whole, reduced-fat, lactose-free and chocolate milk in half gallons and quarts. Other flavors are strawberry, banana, root beer, cotton candy, orange cream, cold brew coffee and cold brew mocha. These, as well as half-and-half, come in quarts.
Birthday cake is June’s featured flavor for to celebrate Nutcher’s anniversary. It’s always the seasonal flavor around this time of year.
Other seasonal flavors are red velvet cake at the beginning of the year, horchata around April, blueberry in July, pumpkin spice in late September and eggnog around Halloween.
All flavors are made from whole milk, Nutcher said. When the creamery makes its 2% milk, the extra cream gets put in the half-and-half.
“We have no byproduct,” Nutcher said. “So there’s actually no waste.”
Nutcher Milk is sold at Save Mart, Lucky and Food Maxx stores. Some Raley’s and Safeway stores sell it, as do some smaller markets in Stanislaus County.
The milk can be purchased right on the farm at 5213 W. Grayson Road. There, Nutcher also sells ice cream in flavors including cookies and cream and banana crunch.
This story was originally published June 10, 2025 at 11:26 AM.
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