Kalispell Kreamery: Dairy owners do it their own way

The family behind Kalispell Kreamery didn’t mean to become a manufacturing plant for all things dairy. In fact, the Hedstrom family didn’t mean to open the company at all.

But customers couldn’t tell that when they toured the facility Thursday for Manufacturing Day.

Bill and Marilyn Hedstrom, along with daughter and son-in-law, Mary and Jared Tuck, had to stretch themselves to create the company from scratch six years ago.

“I was the engineer,” Jared said during the tour. “Mary had the big ideas in marketing, Bill knew the cows, and Marilyn was our financial genius.”

“It really was the perfect storm of people,” Mary agreed. “We couldn’t have done what we did without the variety of skills.”

Several people attended the tour, which was part of Kalispell’s first-ever Manufacturing Day. Many of the attendees were simply interested in the process or loved the products and wanted to see how the milk and Greek yogurt was made.

Mary and Jared took the group on a walking tour of the West Valley farm, from the cows in the barn, through the milking center, to the bottling and packaging area. Along the way, they stopped to explain the process or answer specific questions.

There were no dumb questions for the Tucks.

“We had to learn this all ourselves,” Mary told the group with a laugh. “We figured it out as we went, so our biggest challenge was the huge learning curve.”

In 1971, Bill Hedstrom bought one cow as a family milk cow and quickly fell in love with it. One cow became two, which became four, and eventually, Hedstrom founded the Hedstrom Daily Farm, selling milk to Country Classic, a national dairy company.

In 2009, the Hedstoms and Tucks decided the national market wasn’t the right fit for them any more. National dairy companies had begun imposing ideas and regulations on the small milk farms, trying to regulate how milk was produced.

“That didn’t really sit well for us,” Mary said. “We know our cows, and we’ve always said we sell the milk so we can keep the cows, not the other way around.”

One night when the two generations were sitting around the dinner table at the Hedstroms’  farm, they drew up a business plan on a napkin to create their own creamery. That way, they could keep their cows happy and healthy while running the farm at their own pace.

Quickly, the team scrambled to build its own processing plant. Kalispell Kreamery was born  not 20 feet from Hedstrom Dairy.

During the Manufacturing Day tour, the owners stressed that their creamery was unique in the United States. They process their own milk, without trucking it to a separate facility, and commit to natural medication for their cows so there are no antibiotics in the milk.

The company has continued to grow over the past five years, straining under the Flathead Valley’s demand for more fresh milk.

They have attempted to add butter to their line, but found that they couldn’t keep the 1940s butter-wrapping machine they purchased in working order.  

In June 2013, the company took it one step further, adding Greek yogurt to its line of products.

“We spent a lot of time in the kitchen trying out recipes,” Mary said. “It’s not normally how larger companies do it, but that’s how we figure it out.”

Eventually, they found a way to create Greek yogurt, both plain and honey flavored, through a 12-hour handmade process.

“It’s hard to find a way to make it that doesn’t need additives,” Mary said. “We pride ourselves on our natural products, and we want to keep it that way.”

While the company may not seem to be a typical manufacturer, it embodies the type of manufacturing done in the Flathead Valley.

“We’re always very proud of products that are made in the valley,” said Joe Unterreiner, president of the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce. “There’s a big movement in buying local. We want to create awareness for what is made here.”

The Kalispell Chamber of Commerce put on Manufacturing Day on Thursday and Friday. Flathead Valley Community College and Glacier High School were also able to showcase their manufacturing programs to the public through tours and demonstrations.

The idea was to inform and educate the public about the manufacturing industry, since it makes up a large portion of Flathead Valley’s jobs.

Kalispell Kreamery is continuing to grow, having added 100 cows to its herd since 2009. Now, the farm hosts approximately 200 cows and adds around 25 cows per year.

Even though their products are in high demand, the owners don’t want to stress out their cows with additional production, or rush their process.

“We earned our client base doing things this way,” Jared said, talking about the natural process the creamery uses. “We’re not going to change that. We’ll stay true to our values.”

Currently, they’re experimenting with ice cream recipes. They also hope to produce cottage cheese as well as various flavors of Greek yogurt, in the next few years.

“People always ask when we’re going to start doing this or that,” Mary said. “I tell them, as soon as I Google it and figure out how to make it, we’ll try!”

Reporter Brianna Loper may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at bloper@dailyinterlake.com.