Milk does the body good they say-- so a visit to Lewes Dairy is a must! My thoughts exactly! It's no secret that I love milk, so it came as no surprise that I was fairly excited about this visit. A tiny trip down the road (11 miles to be exact) and I arrived at the family run operation that is Lewes Dairy. More than just milk, they produce water, iced tea, lemonade, cream, and eggnog. I was greeted by Nevin, family member and employee of Lewes Dairy for more than 10 years. We started in the back-- the receiving dock. Lewes Dairy is just that, a dairy. They receive their milk fresh from local dairy farmers to then pasteurize it, homogenize it, and package it. Fun fact: Lewes Dairy was the first in Delaware to introduce pasteurization and homogenization, how cool is that! Past the tanks doing their pasteurization and homogenization gig, we made our way to the cleaning line. It was 1977 that Lewes Dairy stopped bottling with glass and switched to good ol' plastic. While the packaging may be different, the cleaning process ain't! Those plastic bottles are cleaned just as thoroughly before actually making it to the bottling line. A stroll past an agitating tank and I found myself face to face with some of the famous Lewes cream. While the fresh cream did catch my attention, it was more so the metal creamer containers that really caught my eye. "People love that we still use the metal containers," Nevin told me. It's true, I loved them! Onward to where the plastic meets the milk-- finally the bottling line! It seems to work so seamlessly. The bottle travels down the line- they fill 'er up with milk, cap it, and crate it. After being crated, the bottles of milk make their way to the cold room. I wanted to spend the rest of my day in that room- 40 degrees never felt so good in this sizzling heat. From the cold room the bottled milk, water, lemonade, and iced tea make their way to the refrigerated trucks. Once on the trucks, the delicious products are delivered- yum! Lewes Dairy is known for its old-fashioned way of producing such fresh milk, cream, and eggnog. It's so well known, that even chef Dennis agrees, "Drink local. And they have really really really really good milk and cream." At the end of my visit, Nevin sent me on my way with a friendly goodbye and a chilled bottle of chocolate milk. It's true, you can't beat their milk, but you can whip their cream- I've seen it!

the famous cream!

mmmmmm...

fill 'er up!

fresh milk...nom nom nom

metal creamer containers-- loves it!