Time of transition: New milk source for Ropp’s cheese

AgriNews will follow Ken Ropp throughout the entire year. Each month, look for updates about the farmer and the decisions he makes on his farm.

NORMAL, Ill. — Ropp Jersey Cheese has transitioned from using milk produced on-site to milk from another family farm for its cheese products.

Conversations of a possible partnership began in early October between Ken Ropp and Matt and Jenna Kilgus of Kilgus Farmstead and Dairy, a multigenerational family farm in nearby Livingston County that produces milk and meat products. They’ve also sold Ropp Jersey Cheese at their on-farm store for many years.

The Ropps started making cheese in October 2006, and the Ropp Jersey Cheese retail store opened about a month later. By May 2007, the Ropps were using 100% of their own milk for cheese — the first in the state to do so on-site.

There was a point in mid-October when the Kilguses “were long on milk and, lo and behold, I could use it,” said Ken Ropp on Nov. 13.

The notion of partnering with the Kilguses came at a time when the Ropp family members were considering their options going forward with their dairy farm and 19-year-old cheese business.

“We’ve talked as a family. Where do we go from here, what kind of exit strategy would we have and things like that. We talked about several different things that we can do,” Ropp said.

The option of working with the Kilgus family became apparent after a get-together with Matt and Jenna.

“They brought down the first load of milk a couple of weeks ago. Matt wanted to kind of explore a little bit to see what they would be looking at equipment-wise and if it would make more sense for the Kilguses to take the equipment and make their own cheese,” Ropp said.

“And then you walk into our back boiler room (where the cheese is made) and you think, ugh, there’s a lot of stuff that needs to be taken apart. Not only are you looking at the expensive cost of equipment, but the labor involved to move everything and to re-install it — it’s crazy.

“So, does it make more sense to continue to bring milk down and transfer it over to cheese down here at the farm? Everything that we do on this is above board, and it’s worked out really slick for us.

“It’s been a great working relationship for both sides because instead of seeing anything get wasted out of that, they’re bringing down roughly 700 to 800 gallons of milk weekly and we’re making that into product. What it’s done, I think, is open more doors.”

The partnership is its early stages, and details continue to be worked out.

“It’s a labor savings for both sides. Yes, I have to purchase milk, but we can make a shift in personnel where we concentrate more on just the cheese plant and the cheese shop. The cheese shop another thing that we need to discuss, too. There are just so many variables,” Ropp said.

“Do we need to have a retail shop, because Kilgus already has a large retail shop. These are all things that we’re studying. We’re not saying that this is a done deal or anything, but the neat part about it is it’s got both sides thinking, this is doable. The question is, should we do it? Can we do it?”

Ropp Cows

The family farm typically milked 58 Jerseys twice a day to produce its cheese products.

“We’re still milking the cows. We’re just not using that milk because we’ve taken a few cows out of the herd. We don’t have the volume that we need from our own cows to make it sustainable with the cheese,” Ropp said.

“Brett Yoder is continuing to milk here and do our thing. We’re using that milk to feed to the calves and so on. We don’t do any raw milk sales. We haven’t done that in eons, but it would be tricky on a cow to just cut them off cold. You’d have sickness and things like that. We still have cows calving, too.

“We just started transitioning two weeks ago. The other hard part is, when we’re looking at the value of the animals. We want to take a group of these cows and move them, but the beef prices have come down. We’ve dabbled a little bit with it.

“We took a couple of animals to the sale barn to see what they would bring there. That doesn’t look like that’s the answer, but I’ve got some other people in private that are interested in the animals. It’s just a matter of which direction we move.

“There’s a whole lot of other stuff that could happen here, too. We could still take care of young stock, and so we can help out on that end, too. It doesn’t mean that I want to turn into a feedlot, but we could sure help raise some animals. We’re studying all of those different avenues.”

Same Quality, Service

Although the milk is from cows at another location, Ropp’s cheese quality and taste remains the same.

“It’s our recipes, our work. People will not notice a change in taste and flavor because it’s going from Jersey milk to Jersey milk. It’s not a transition that’s going to be difficult,” Ropp said.

Ropp delivers cheese to restaurants and retail stores across a wide portion of the state, racking up thousands of miles a month in the process. That will continue.

“We’re going to continue the cheese business. I’m not sure about the store part on the farm. It’s one of those things that we have this discussion right now, and this may change this afternoon,” Ropp said.

“The hard part for me is it’s the typical story of life. Hurry up and wait because we’ve got a lot of ideas and a lot of brainstorming going on. You’ve got to put all those ideas down and try and figure it out.”

It’s Time

Operating a dairy farm requires a commitment that’s far beyond crop production, with twice daily milkings and, in the Ropp family’s case, turning that fresh milk into cheese.

Focusing only on the cheese side of the business becomes much more manageable for the family members, particularly at this point in their lives.

“I’m working on 55 years of age. I’m not 18. I’m not 30 anymore. These first couple cold days with that cold wind reminded me, we need to get this done sooner rather than later,” Ropp said.

“It’s something that I like doing, but I’m not much of a friend, I’m not much of a father, and I’m not much of a husband, and it’s too bad that I’m realizing that now. We’re celebrating our 30th anniversary here in November. It’s time.

“The big part is, and Matt Kilgus and I talked about it, he’s like, ‘Kenny, if any of this is going to work, we need you to stick around.’ Now, there’s no set time frame on that, but I get it. There’s a lot for someone to come in and learn how we do it, what it is that we make exactly, and they’ve been a customer of ours for years.

“I get it. They need to have people there and, at the same time, I need to have some of the Kilgus clan come down and learn the cheese-making process. They don’t make cheese there. They sell strictly bottles of milk and they’re also involved heavily on the meat side of things, too. They have the beef, goats and hogs.

“I think the fit is perfect. The neat part about Kilgus is you’ve got several different Kilgus families involved there and they’ve all got their part. They also have a larger labor pool and it makes more sense. My labor pool is diminishing.

“We have one daughter and, I don’t want to say she has zero interest, but she sure as heck doesn’t want to do what her dad does. She’s not going to milk cows, pack a cheese and drive 8,000 miles a month.”

Farming Update

When AgriNews last met with Ropp on Oct. 6, he was harvesting corn across from the dairy farm when mechanical problems brought the day to a temporary halt.

“We didn’t have any equipment problems other than the day that you were here and you got to see the old white farm truck get a little overheated and, as it turns out, we cracked the head on that thing. We had to retire the farm truck,” he said of the pickup that was pulling the grain wagon from the field to the bin.

“I had a neighbor that came over and helped out. He had a had an auger cart and a truck and so we were able to move stuff a lot quicker even after the white truck went down.”

The farm has a rotation of about 200 acres of corn, 200 acres of soybeans and 50 acres of alfalfa.

“The yield numbers were real strong. We were upper 60s on the beans and corn was right around that 220 range, maybe just a tick higher,” Ropp said.

“Harvest itself, it went really smooth. We were in and out of there in good time. It took me three or four days to get the corn done, and when you’re working with just short of 200 acres of corn, and moving it like we were, it worked out well.”

A field adjacent to the dairy barn that has been continuous corn for silage as far back as Ropp can remember was harvested for grain and averaged around 223 bushels per acre. With the milk now being sourced by the Kilguses, that field will be put into a rotation.

“Next year, we’ll put that silage corn into beans for the first time. I’ve never seen it in beans. It’ll be interesting to see how the numbers come out on that field, but the corn-on-corn was a surprise,” Ropp said.

“Even the double-cropped beans coming off that first-cutting hay ground that was planted into beans late season, we saw those numbers in the mid 40s, which isn’t a bad number. You know you’re going to have a loss on yield in double-crop soybeans, but the question is how significant is it going to be.

“We ended up with six cuttings of hay. We were in good shape there considering how dry it got. At the start of the season, things were fired up well. It did slow down a little bit at the end, but we ended up with six and we’re standing in good shape. We’ve got plenty of feed for the animals. It’s just a matter of the direction we want to go now.”