SHENANDOAH—A safe, streamlined supply chain keeps farm-fresh fluid milk flowing from the cow to your cereal in an impressive turnaround time.
One Virginia dairy cow is milked about three times a day and produces an average 8 gallons of milk. Within 48 hours of farm collection, that milk is processed, packaged and delivered to hundreds of stores throughout Virginia and surrounding states.
In Shenandoah County, a tanker arrives at French Brothers Dairy before dawn on alternating days. About 17,000 pounds of cold fluid milk, or 2,000 gallons, is siphoned from a bulk tank into the refrigerated tanker.
“A large farm may have two pickups a day,” said Eric Paulson, executive director of the Virginia State Dairymen’s Association. “A just-in-time system gets it to store shelves through a process that’s been perfected over decades.”
Processing plants hold milk in large, refrigerated milk silos before it’s pasteurized, homogenized and packaged for distribution. Safe handling and inspections are overseen by Virginia Department of Health and Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services officials. They evaluate samples for bacterial counts or traces of antibiotics.
Pasteurization is a simple process—heating milk to 161 degrees for 15 seconds and cooling it back down to kill any bacteria and extend the shelf life. Homogenization breaks milk fat into smaller molecules, improving texture, taste and product consistency.
The dairy industry offers an array of consumer choices beyond whole milk, 2%, 1% and skim, now including organic options and other fluid milk products developed with an A2 protein that may improve digestibility.
Paulson said the industry also has met a marketplace need for lactose-free milk.
“A soft-filtration process filters milk into base components that are put back together without the lactose,” he explained. “It’s still regular milk.”
Many Virginians once owned dairy cows to sustain their families. By 1920, more than 13,700 Virginia farms engaged in commercial milk production, according to VSDA history. About 360 Virginia dairies are still in operation in 2025.
“We’re producing more milk on fewer farms,” Paulson said. “There’s more concentration, and incredible gains in genetics and nutrition, which helps farmers be a lot more productive than they were over 50 years ago.”
Though consumers are less connected to farm life, they are more curious about who produces their food, he added. The VSDA co-founded an online tool at whereismymilkfrom.com for consumers to track their milk sources with the code imprinted on cartons.
Read the full story in Virginia Farm Bureau Federation’s spring Cultivate magazine.
Media: Contact Paulson at 540-491-4471 or Nicole Zema, VFBF communications, at 804-370-6298.