Today we’d like to introduce you to John Hornstra.
John, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Hornstra Farms has been a family owned and operated business for over one hundred years! In 1912, Anske and Agnes Hornstra, along with their six children, boarded a ship in Holland in search of a better life in America. Three years later, in 1915, the family bought their first dairy farm in Hingham, Massachusetts and Hornstra Farms was born. Since that time, four generations of Hornstras have continued the family tradition of proudly delivering the freshest and finest quality milk to families across the South Shore.
The Hingham farm with its 80 acres was sold to a developer in the early 1980s and for the next 30 plus years Hornstra Farms outsourced the milk for the home delivery business. When I took over the business in the mid-80’s, the milk routes had dwindled and we were down to one very antiquated home delivery truck. For the next few years, I concentrated on rebuilding and expanding the home delivery routes, adding several new trucks and many more communities to our home delivery territory.
My wife, Lauren, and myself had the opportunity to purchase a non-operational farm in neighboring Norwell, Massachusetts in 2009 and we jumped at the chance to own our own dairy farm again. The new farm, located at 246 Prospect Street, required much restoration and rebuilding but in 2013 we finally began bottling our own milk, from our own herd of cows. We opened a retail farm store and a seasonal ice cream dairy bar shortly after. It has been our pleasure to welcome visitors to the farm so that they can see exactly where their milk comes from.
Has it been a smooth road?
Growing a business is never a smooth road. It took years of dreaming and planning before we were able to find and purchase the Norwell farm. Thanks to the Commonwealth’s APR Program (Agriculture Preservation Restriction Program), and the foresight of the former owner, Albert Loring, the Norwell farm was protected from development. Otherwise, this property would have been sold as house lots, just as our own farm in Hingham had been many years before.
Once we had purchased the farm we began to restore the buildings and build our herd. We hired a herdsman to manage the cows, built a new bottling plant and set about learning to make a premium ice cream, none of this came without challenges but we persevered until we got it right, and we continue to learn and grow from our mistakes and successes every day.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Our home delivery business services about 3500 South Shore families. We deliver own farm fresh milk, cream, butter and ice cream, as well as many other local specialty products. We also have a busy farm store and a very popular seasonal ice cream stand.
Of course, we are proudest of our fresh milk and cream. That is really the foundation of any dairy business. People say that you can taste the difference in our milk, cream, butter and ice cream and we definitely believe you can. The products sell themselves.
We are also proud of our friendly service. Our home delivery customers are like our extended families. We deliver to many kitchen refrigerators so we get to know our families pretty well and we get to watch the kids grow up. Being a milkman is really a very happy job.
I think what sets us apart from other businesses is that we welcome the public to come and see our operation. You can actually view the cows that make your milk. You can look through our plant window and watch us make butter or apple cider donuts; you can follow us on Facebook or Instagram and find out what new ice cream flavors we are offering, or which cow has recently calved. We want our customers to see what it takes to produce their food and what dairy farming is all about.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Farming in the outskirts of a major city like Boston is a rarity nowadays. That’s sad because New England has such a strong agrarian heritage. Nowadays, the biggest challenge for a farmer in the suburbs of Boston is finding suitable land to farm.
Massachusetts was one of the first states to offer an APR Program to protect agricultural lands and I was lucky to be the beneficiary of that program. Without the APR Program, it would’ve been impossible for me to purchase a large tract of land in this area. I am also fortunate to be able to grow my feed on various parcels of land that local communities have purchased and set aside as open space.
It is important that we always keep in mind the relationship between land and our food supply, otherwise we will become very dependent on other countries to produce our food. Water and land are still our most important natural resources.
Pricing:
- Our weekly home delivery charge is only $2.50/ week.
Contact Info:
- Address: 246 Prospect St.,
Norwell, MA 02043 - Website: www.hornstrafarms.com
- Phone: 781-749-1222
- Email: info@hornstrafarms.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/99407819/hornstra-farms/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Hornstra-Farms-104822769553012/
Image Credit:
Photo of cows in pasture and of John Hornstra on fence by Debee Tlumacki for the Boston Globe.
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