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Windy with a few clouds from time to time. High 9F. Winds WNW at 20 to 30 mph. Higher wind gusts possible..

Clear skies. Low around -5F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph.

Hutchinson High School students Landon Olsen and Reiley Maiers get refills of their chocolate milk from the new milk dispenser in the cafeteria. It’s part of a farm-to-school program that started this month offering students fresh, locally sourced milk during lunch.

Another reason for the new milk dispenser is to cut down on waste. Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that nearly 30% of milk in lunchroom cartons is thrown out, not to mention all the cartons themselves. With the dispensers, people drink from reusable glasses and are encouraged to take only the milk they plan to drink. To keep track of how much is wasted, Hutchinson High School students dump the milk they don’t drink into a container to be measured.

Hutchinson High School students Landon Olsen and Reiley Maiers get refills of their chocolate milk from the new milk dispenser in the cafeteria. It’s part of a farm-to-school program that started this month offering students fresh, locally sourced milk during lunch.

Another reason for the new milk dispenser is to cut down on waste. Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that nearly 30% of milk in lunchroom cartons is thrown out, not to mention all the cartons themselves. With the dispensers, people drink from reusable glasses and are encouraged to take only the milk they plan to drink. To keep track of how much is wasted, Hutchinson High School students dump the milk they don’t drink into a container to be measured.

Do you love cold, fresh milk? If so, you have reason to envy middle and high school students in the Hutchinson, Litchfield and Dassel-Cokato school districts.

Instead of grabbing the usual carton of milk, students in the meal line starting Feb. 1 had the option to pick up a glass and fill it from new bulk dispensers full of milk from Stony Creek Dairy of Melrose. The farm has been in the Schoenberg family for seven generations.

“They pasteurize their milk right on site,” said Leslie Mueller, child nutrition director for the three school districts. “They have a creamery. It’s very local and they’ve been great to work with.”

Nathan Terres with Stone Creek Dairy said the operation began bottling milk in its own facility in 2008. It milks around 500 cows and bottles about 3,500 gallons daily. Surplus milk is sent to First District Association in Litchfield.

Mueller described the cold milk dispensers as providing a better, creamier taste than milk packaged in cartons.

“After sitting in those (cartons) a time, it can kind of bring on the taste of the carton,” Mueller said.

Lois Beilke, the assistant production manager at the Hutchinson High School cafeteria, said there are a few details being worked out, such as where to best place the dispenser to keep the flow of students moving smoothly. Overall, however, she said it’s been a positive change.

“The very first day I went out and went table to table and talked to them and I said how do you like the milk? They were like ‘This is great,’” Beilke said. “They were excited. They were hyped up before we even started it and looking forward to it tasting so much fresher and cold.”

That was exactly the reaction of two HHS students who were refilling their glasses with chocolate milk during Thursday’s lunch.

“It tastes colder, honestly,” Landon Olsen said.

“It tastes like actual milk,” Reiley Maiers said. “All that stuff (in cartons) tasted kind of funky.”

But the schools didn’t make the switch just to give a tastier lunch. According to data from the United States Department of Agriculture, almost 30% of milk from cartons is wasted. Not to mention the cartons themselves, which account for nearly half of lunchroom trash by volume. Some cartons are never even opened before they are tossed out.

Dispensers cut down on that waste when students only take what they plan to drink, and they’re more energy efficient than carton coolers. Reusable glasses are also considered more sanitary.

“Zero-waste milk is a piece of our farm-to-school program,” reads the notice. “We’re buying milk from a family-run, Minnesota dairy farm.”

Money to fund the new offering came from grants and donations. The Minnesota Department of Education provided grants of $4,500 each to Hutchinson, Litchfield and Dassel-Cokato, which allowed each district to purchase three machines. Additional donations from Midwest Dairy have given Hutchinson and Dassel-Cokato the ability to purchase more. Volunteers from Midwest Dairy were also on hand for the first week to help familiarize students with the machines.

For now, the program is offered at middle and high schools, but it could spread to other grade levels. Mueller had originally considered using bulk milk dispensers after visiting Waconia and seeing the schools use the devices.

“I thought about it. I had it in the back of my head for something down the line,” she said.

She was reminded of Waconia’s dispensers again this past year and started to take the idea more seriously. That’s when she received an email about the grants, and she learned about Stony Creek Dairy.

“They’re very local and they’ve been great to work with,” Mueller said. “We’ll work with them the rest of the year and hope for years moving forward, too.”

Terres, who was on-hand in Hutchinson on Feb. 1, said supply chain issues due to COVID made it challenging to get together everything needed to work with the schools, but the dairy hopes it can work with more schools in the future, as well as with Hutchinson, Litchfield and Dassel-Cokato. When he visited the districts to help with preparations, he found staff had a lot of excitement for the change.

“When opportunities like this one come to us, it’s something we get excited about,” Terres said. “It’s our chance to get our product to young people and show what we do.”

"When opportunities like this one come to us, it's something we get excited about. It's our chance to get our product to young people and show what we do."

Nathan Terres. Stone Creek Dairy 

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