Meadow Vista Dairy, LLC A modern dairy farm focused on sustainability, cow comfort, stewardship, and forward-­‐thinking About us •  Home to 750 registered Holsteins and 620 heifers •  Located in Northwest Lancaster County – near Three Mile Island •  Double crop Rye & Corn •  Alfalfa haylage •  ExperimentaLon in triple cropping •  Produce 21 million pounds milk annually – 1.4 million lbs/FT worker Our role in the food chain •  High quality milk and dairy beef comes from healthy cows •  High quality milk needs harvested from cows through sanitary standard operaLng procedures •  OpLmum cooling, cleaning of equipment •  What goes out our driveway is a representaLon of who we are Quality Standards •  We strive for whole herd SCC below 100,000 •  Bacteria counts, Preliminary incubaLon counts below 5,000 CFUs, no excuses •  No residue violaLons in milk or meat are acceptable •  Animal welfare standards: we (industry) need to clean up our act! It all starts with us… •  Cheese yield is determined by high quality milk •  Our industry needs to lower the SCC threshold! •  One voice in animal welfare •  We need to educate the public – if not us – PETA? •  Let’s eliminate the black-­‐eyes within the industry