WHOLESOME HISTORY Long-time dairy serves schools, county
FORWARD TWP — In 1842, German immigrant George Marburger Sr. bought 100 acres of rural land in southwestern Butler County to raise draft horses. Little did he know that his descendants would transform those early dreams into a milk empire.
Marburger Farm Dairy on Mars-Evans City Road now produces 100,000 gallons of milk and buttermilk plus 25,000 gallons of nonmilk drinks per week.
The company's milk comes from 100 head of cattle at the 200-acre property on Mars-Evans City Road that houses the offices and dairy, as well as 70 Western Pennsylvania farms that sell milk to Marburger's.
Jim Marburger, 71, company president, said his customers prefer Marburger milk over the more mass-produced variety because of “cold separating.”
He explained that while larger milk producers heat their milk to 170 degrees during the separating process, Marburger milk remains chilled throughout processing. “It makes it taste better,” Marburger said.
The dairy cows at the Marburger Farm Dairy, as well as those of the farmers from whom Marburger buys raw milk, are not fed the growth hormone BST.
“We have hormone-free milk,” he said.
His son, vice president Craig Marburger, said employees begin each day by producing 15,000 gallons of skim milk before moving on to blending the 1 and 2 percent varieties as well as whole and chocolate milk and the teas and buttermilk.
Once bottled in gallons, half gallons, quarts and pints, the milk travels in crates via moving chains on the floor to a huge cooler. The milk products are taken from there and loaded on refrigerated trucks for delivery to stores, schools and homes.
“We have about 1,500 home delivery customers,” Craig Marburger said. “Deliveries are once per week, and you can get any product.”
Jim Marburger recalled the plant before automation, when strong backs ensured the products made it onto the trucks.
“We used to wheel milk out of the cooler on carts,” he said.
Craig Marburger said that 20 years ago, the dairy produced mainly whole milk, but today workers bottle equal amounts of whole milk and the lower-fat 2 percent, 1 percent and skim varieties.
He said gallons are still the most popular size.
“Half gallons were catching up (to the number of gallons produced) when the price of milk was high,” Craig Marburger said.
Government regulations in the past several years require that all chocolate milk served at public schools must be made of skim milk, and the Women, Infants and Children program began allowing only skim or 1 percent milk. Changes were needed.
“It's really created a problem in the dairy industry nationwide,” Jim Marburger said.
He said first lady Michelle Obama's Healthy Lunch Initiative meant schools had to choose to offer skim or 1 percent milk, and many districts chose skim. That meant many students passed on milk altogether.
He said that children learn to drink milk in school, and if they don't like the skim variety, they won't buy it and decide they don't like milk.
“When we went to skim chocolate milk, the sales really fell drastically,” Jim Marburger said.He added that childhood obesity is being blamed on diet when he thinks it is actually the sedentary lifestyles of youth.“It's because of that thing right there,” Jim Marburger said as he jerked a thumb toward the computer on his desk.The father and son said Marburger Farm Dairy is proud to provide milk to every school district in Butler County. However, school milk sales are down 5 percent to 8 percent.The dairy began selling tea about 30 years ago, and now produces a myriad of tea varieties.“We started out with regular tea,” said Jim Marburger, “but now we've expanded so.”Diet tea, flavored tea and sweet tea are popular selections among iced tea drinkers,“Our brewed tea has cane sugar and no high fructose corn syrup,” Craig Marburger said, “so it has a lower content of sugars.”He said the half-pint iced teas that were sold as a beverage option at public schools also became a casualty of the Healthy Lunch Initiative.Years of expansionGeorge Marburger decided in the late 1800s to exchange his draft horses for dairy cows, and Marburger Farm Dairy was born.The business thrived at a different location outside of Evans City until the late 1930s, when Jim Marburger's grandfather bought the bankrupt Evans City Dairy at the current site.Jim Marburger said his grandfather immediately built a farmhouse for his bride, Jim's grandmother, who lived to be more than 100 years old. She died in 1995.He then built offices to house the business's operations.“Grandpap built that in 1940,” Jim Marburger said. “Those offices are still in the center of the complex.”Several expansion projects have occurred over the years, most of which were necessitated by automation or company growth.Craig Marburger said the giant red-and-white milk carton that adorns the roof of the building was added about 15 years ago.“About 4,000 gallons of milk would fit in the big carton,” he said.Jim Marburger recalls milking cows before school as a child.“I never wanted to do anything else,” he said.Today, a corner of Marburger's office is filled with toys, which see action each morning when his two grandsons come to visit. Marburger plays with the boys, and likes to take them for rides around the dairy on a golf cart.He said his daughter and the boys' mother, Carrie Marburger-Robb, is active in the dairy along with Craig Marburger.He hopes the tots he bounces on his knee each day will someday pick up the reins so the dairy will continue to supply milk, buttermilk, tea and juice for years to come.Jim Marburger summed up his reasoning for remaining in the business his family began more than a century ago.“I like coming here,” he said.
