Anyone who knows me knows that I am obsessed with Shatto Milk Company. Seriously, frighteningly OBSESSED. The small, family-run dairy northeast of Kansas City produces the yummiest milk, cheese, butter and ice cream I have ever tasted. And I have had a lot of dairy products in my lifetime, I promise you!
When I heard that Shatto offered tours, I immediately began planning a trip. Imagine my delight when my friend, Melissa, called to tell me they had an opening in the tour group that SHE had planned! That's right, folks - I get to visit the Shatto farm twice this month!!!! (And also, Sarah gets to tag along with me.)
Look how idyllic this farm is...
Look how idyllic this farm is...
A whopping 46 employees keep the KC metro area supplied with fresh, delicious Shatto products, but every day from 10:30-11:15 or so, they pull people from production to lead dairy-enthusiasts such as myself on a tour of the farm.
Our tour started with the processing plant, where all of the milk is flavored and bottled. In addition to their plain milk, Shatto makes chocolate, strawberry, orange crème, root beer, coffee, cotton candy, and banana milk year round. They make eggnog and pumpkin eggnog around the holidays, and this year they've been making limited edition flavors to celebrate their 10th anniversary. They started in February with chocolate cherry, but they only made 2,000 bottles of it and it was gone instantly. They got a little smarter and released a bunch of their next flavor - chocolate mint - in March. It was TO. DIE. FOR. Seriously. It was incredible. This May, they released a cookies and cream flavored milk that was tasty, but not really my thing (I don't love cookies and cream ice cream, which is exactly what this milk tastes like). Here is where all of that magic happens:
Sarah and the rest of the kids on our tour weren't that impressed by the bottling process, but they loved our next stop - the farm's vintage 1954 Divco Milk Truck. Not only was it cool to look at, but the horn "mooed" rather than honking!
And if a mooing truck wasn't enough to make Sarah's day complete, we also got to sample every single flavor of milk made by Shatto. It was a smart thing to do because, while I've tried most of their flavors, I hadn't touched the orange or banana milks (they just sounded yucky to me!). Of course, I was wrong, wrong, wrong - they were both surprisingly good. I'd even consider buying some of the banana to eat with my Cheerios!
After we finished off our milk, we walked out to the barns to meet some of Shatto's happy cows. Our first stop was to see three of their newer calves:
Sarah loved the calves, but she was a little intimidated by the full-grown cows. They were all very well-behaved, though, and waited patiently to be milked!
Poor, unlucky Aubrey, however, was the cow that had been picked for US to milk. Needless to say, Sarah wanted no part of that! Luckily, Aubrey seemed to be a pretty laid back cow, and she was content to just stand around and let everyone gawk at her!
We checked out how the cows were milked (which kind of freaked out all the kids!), and then we headed back inside for more samples. Because our tummies weren't already bursting with dairy goodness from all that milk...
This time, we sampled Shatto's butters and cheeses. Sarah appreciated the animal crackers, but not the honey butter.
Oh. And she appreciated the cheese. ALL of the cheese.
After the tour, we had a quick picnic lunch and then let the kids run around for a bit before driving 90 minutes back to our houses. I think Sarah had as much fun running around as she did touring the farm!
It was a fantastic day, and I am already looking forward to my next visit! Thanks, Shatto!!!
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