The Rural Voice, 2000-07, Page 29grazing in the field.
Visitors are treated to a quiet
pastoral setting. People visiting from
the city will get the impression that
this is what country life is all about
but behind the scenes there's a hectic
schedule to keep up.
Jneke
Booy and her husband
Martin De Groot operate
Mapleton Organic Dairy Inc. on
600 acres of certified organic land
w;th their four children and their
future son-in-law Maurice
Lambrecht, who is the plant manager.
Their on-farm store is open almost 50
hours a week throughout the summer.
Processing of the ice cream takes
place two days per week. The first
day processes the cream from the
milk and then sugar is mixed in it.
The sugar and cream mixture is then
pasteurized and homogenized. In
total the process takes 12 hours.
Processing on the second day
involves filling up all the containers
continuously which takes 4.5 to 5
hours to complete. It is a three person
job and they hire local students and
neighbours to help. There are five
flavours of ice cream: chocolate,
raspberry, cappuccino, vanilla and
vanilla chocolate chunk. Frozen
yogurt flavours include lemon,
strawberry and French vanilla. Fruit
purees for Mapleton's Organic are
shipped in.
Marketing and distribution is also
a constant job as they seek to expand
their volume. The growth in the first
year has been fueled by contacts
Booy developed in her work with
Ontarbio for three years marketing
organic milk. Ontarbio is an Organic
Farmers' Co-operative based in
Durham.
Also helping promote the
company is a website to link people
to their products. It's at
www.mapletonorganic.on.ca.
DeGroot and Booy decided to
make the move to processing organic
ice cream and yogurt last year when
they weighed the return on
investment they could expect to
receive from investing in quota for
eight more cows to add to their 60-
cow herd. Feeling the returns would
il be quicker and higher by getting into
IN
the processing end of the industry
they decided to take the risk. They
also wanted to maintain the balance
they had established between all
aspects of their farm operation.
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