Our Story

We didn't start out as farmers — we started out as good eaters. Juicy heirloom tomatoes, fresh salad greens, spicy basil, sweet and crunchy carrots — these are the vegetables that first lured us into gardening. It was a big garden, and a few fruit trees and raspberry canes - enough for us and some friends. We were producing nearly all our own food, with one glaring exception. Yogurt. We were eating nearly four quarts of yogurt a week, and the grocery bill was adding up. So we did what any sensible consumer would do in that situation. We bought three dairy cows.

For nearly 15 years, we made yogurt from the milk of our own herd of grass-fed organic cows. (The cow and farm photos you see on this website are from that time…) At our former farm in Hawley, we built a light and airy barn for winter cow housing, and a modern creamery for yogurt production. For our regular applications of lime and manure, fish fertilizer and trace minerals, the fields thanked us with increasing yields of high quality grass. We certified the entire operation as organic - both cows and yogurt. Our crew grew to 10 folks, who celebrated weddings, bought houses, gave birth to babies, and are raising kids who think that grocery store milk tastes funny. Our mission has always been to provide healthy, affordable food to everyone; and with help from our crew, we refined that mission to focus on the quality of our products, the efficiency of our systems, and gratitude for all living beings and resources that support our work. (Plus having a good time doing it!)

In 2020, we decided that we could do more good for our customers and our local dairy farms by selling our cows, and buying the milk for our yogurt from local family farms committed to organic, humane, regenerative dairy farming. Now more cows live satisfying lives acting like cows, more soil biology continues to improve and gain fertility, more dairy farmers make a living milking cows, more yogurt makers make yogurt and provide for their families, and more loyal customers buy fantastic organic grass-fed yogurt made at Sidehill Farm. And maybe we all get a vacation. That sounds pretty exciting to us.

Today, Sidehill Farm Yogurt produces over 6000 quarts of certified organic yogurt each week, and ships it all over Massachusetts, and into neighboring states!

Making yogurt on this small scale permits us to focus on health — not just of our customers, but of our employees, the local working rural landscape, and the robust biological and human community within which we all thrive. It also allows us to build good relationships with our customers, many of whom we know by name from farmers' markets and visits to the farm. We like to think that explains why we have been blessed with sweet stories of kids hugging containers of their favorite yogurt, parents proudly showing off babies they claim must consist of at least 75% Sidehill Farm Yogurt, and anonymous handwritten notes, thanking us for the opportunity to eat not only local and organic, but more deliciously than they ever imagined.